Alea iacta est: May 7, 2024 primary election results, served when ready

Primary Election Day polls for May 7, 2024 have now closed in Monroe County.

The cutoff time was 6 p.m., which made for a 12-hour voting day. But anyone in line by 6 p.m. has to be allowed to cast a ballot.

Voters who joined the line just before the closing of the polls are just one reason that results can’t be reported immediately at 6 p.m.

Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne typically cautions against expecting any results before 7 p.m. The earliest votes that will be reported are from in-person early voting and mailed-in absentee ballots.

The B Square will add to this article with time-stamped updates from Election Central until the final unofficial results are in, or otherwise indicated here.

[Updated 8:25 p.m. May 7, 2024. The unofficial winners of the contested local races for respective party nominations: Democrat Jody Madeira for District 3 county commissioner; Democrat Julie Thomas for District 2 county commissioner; Democrats Trent Deckard, Cheryl Munson, and David Henry for at-large county council. And Republican Joe Van Deventer for District 3 county commissioner.]
Continue reading “Alea iacta est: May 7, 2024 primary election results, served when ready” →

Monroe County election board finishes final prep for Tuesday, May 7 primaries

These are the lanyards for Monroe County election board members: Nicole Browne, Judith Benckart, and John Fernandez.

Election Central at 7th and Madison streets is set up to process mailed-in and early in-person ballots.

Chart of the early in-person voting totals for the 2024 primary election in Monroe County.

On Monday night, a red-tailed hawk kept watch over Monroe County’s Election Central from the antenna on top of the justice center at 7th Street and College Avenue.

On Monday night, campaign yard signs at Fairview Elementary School were guarded by the Joe LaMantia’s Aristicat.

Campaign yard signs at Monroe County’s election operations building at 3rd and Walnut streets.

By around 7:30 p.m. on Monday night, all but three of the 29 polling locations for Primary Election Day on May 7 had checked in with Monroe County election division staff at Election Central to confirm they were set for the next day’s voting.

Election Central is the old Johnson’s Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets.

Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. Continue reading “Monroe County election board finishes final prep for Tuesday, May 7 primaries” →

Column: Staring into the civic sun in 2024, the year of a solar eclipse

In 2024, the local civic cosmos could see some big changes, in the same year when a rare literal cosmic event will unfold.

On April 8, a solar eclipse will briefly cast a shadow directly over the Bloomington area, turning daylight into gloam. (Yes, that is an awfully fancy word for “twilight,” but it’s the kind of highfalutin fare that is customary for a newspaper year-in-preview column.)

During an eclipse, in the battle between dark and light across the visible disk of the sun, the dark begins with a steady assimilation of the light’s territory, but the light always reverses the trend and prevails in the end.

That’s either a great or a lousy metaphor for municipal annexation, depending on a person’s political perspective.

In fall of 2021, Bloomington’s city council approved the annexation of seven different territories, all of which are still the subject of litigation.

Metaphors aside, 2024 holds the potential for some court decisions on those pending annexations, which might settle the question of how much Bloomington’s boundaries will change.

Of course, annexation is just one of myriad civic issues that are in the queue for Bloomington and Monroe County in 2024.

Here’s a non-exhaustive rundown of topics The B Square will try to track in the coming year. Continue reading “Column: Staring into the civic sun in 2024, the year of a solar eclipse” →