Tag: Election Central

Logic and accuracy test done as Monroe County approaches start of early in-person voting on April 4

On Friday morning, Monroe County’s election equipment was put through its paces at the old Johnson Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets in downtown Bloomington, aka Election Central.

When the tallies were totalled up, from the test decks that had been fed through the three regular ballot scanners and one high-speed machine, they added up to the numbers they were supposed to.

Attending the test were all three election board members: Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne, Donovan Garletts and David Henry.

B&L IT Services is a contractor the county uses for logistics and technical support in connection with elections, including the upcoming city primary on May 2.

As B&L’s Bob White told the board, when he put a stack of printouts on the table: “These are the results we got. They were the expected results—if you compare them, they all match.”

Monroe County’s voting equipment is manufactured by Hart InterCivic.  Early in-person voting starts on April 4.

Bloomington voters will be electing party nominees for mayor, clerk, and nine city council seats. Ellettsville voters will elect party nominees for clerk/treasurer and town council. Continue reading “Logic and accuracy test done as Monroe County approaches start of early in-person voting on April 4” →

2023 Elections | Day One notebook: 9 file paperwork, including 3 known mayoral candidates

Wednesday was the first day it was possible to file the forms to declare an official candidacy for municipal elections in Indiana’s 2023 election cycle.

In Monroe County, nine candidates got that paperwork task out of the way on Day One.

Filing their CAN-42 forms on Wednesday, in order of filing, were: Kerry Thomson (Bloomington mayor); Susan Sandberg (Bloomington mayor); Sue Sgambelluri (Bloomington city council District 2); Don Griffin (Bloomington mayor); Ron Smith (Bloomington city council District 3); William Ellis (Ellettsville town council Ward 2); Jonas Schrodt (Bloomington city council at large); Brett Heinisch (Bloomington city council, District 3); and Nicole Bolden (Bloomington city clerk).

Ellis and Heinisch filed to run in the Republican Party’s primary. The others filed to run in the Democratic Party’s primary. Continue reading “2023 Elections | Day One notebook: 9 file paperwork, including 3 known mayoral candidates” →

Election equipment for Monroe County passes logic, accuracy test

Lori White, with B&L IT services. In the background monitoring the test is Ralf Shaw with the League of Women Voters (Sept. 19, 2022).
The hand belongs to Bob White, with B&L IT Services (Sept. 19, 2022).
Monroe County deputy clerk Tressia Martin (Sept. 19, 2022).

Monroe County’s election equipment, manufactured by Hart InterCivic has passed the logic and accuracy test mandated under state statute.

The test was conducted with help from Bob and Lori White, with B&L IT Services, which is a contractor the county uses for logistics and technical support in connection with elections.

The test took place at 9:30 a.m. on Monday at the old Johnson Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets, aka Election Central.

After a test deck of 22 ballots was fed into each of the three machines, and the machines tallied up the results, every candidate in every race received 4 votes. That meant the devices selected for testing passed with 100 percent accuracy. Continue reading “Election equipment for Monroe County passes logic, accuracy test” →

Monroe County voting machines pass required logic and accuracy test

Every candidate for any office in the Monroe County primary elections got exactly six votes—and that’s the way it was supposed to turn out on Thursday.

Two seated women feed test ballots into a voting machine
From left, Monroe County clerk’s office staff: Tressia Martin and Keeley Hardiman.

The occasion was the logic and accuracy test of voting equipment that’s required under state statute.

It was conducted at the old Johnson Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets, aka Election Central.

The six votes for each candidate meant that the logic and accuracy test for the Hart InterCivic machines had passed with 100 percent accuracy, according to Bob White, with B&L IT Services. That’s the consultant used by Monroe County for technical election support. Continue reading “Monroe County voting machines pass required logic and accuracy test” →

Election notebook: Candidates inspect ballot proofs

On Friday for most of the day, 190 different ballot types for the May 3 primary elections were on display for review by the candidates at Monroe County’s election central.

That’s the office in the old Johnson Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets.

The B Square counted 28 candidates or their proxies who inspected ballots on Friday. That’s just 16 percent of the 172 total candidate names that will appear on ballots in Monroe County. It’s not a legal requirement that candidates inspect the ballot.

But it is a requirement of state law that ballot proofs be made available for inspection before they’re printed [IC 3-11-2-2.1]

It’s a chance for candidates to help catch misspellings of their own names before the ballots get printed.

The email message to candidates sent by Monroe County election supervisor Karen Wheeler begged them to stop by and check over the ballots: “So I will implore you to come and review. This is the time to catch anything that may be wrong.” Continue reading “Election notebook: Candidates inspect ballot proofs” →

Can Monroe County commissioners, election board bury beefs before 2022?

Towards the start of their Wednesday meeting this week, the three Monroe County commissioners responded in turn to remarks made by county clerk Nicole Browne at last week’s election board meeting.

Commissioner Penny Githens led off, “To hear ourselves and to hear people in our office called liars and obfuscators is very disrespectful.”

As one the three county election board members, Browne had delivered her remarks last week on the topic of the ongoing acrimony between commissioners and the election board about space allocations for the county election division.

Under state law, the county clerk is a board member, along with one appointment made by each of the Republican and Democratic party chairs. All three county commissioners are Democrats, as is Browne.

Browne wants the county elections division to be able to consolidate all of its currently distributed space under one roof, by having the whole Johnson Hardware building at its disposal, instead of just a part of the first floor. The building, aka Election Central, is located on the southwest corner of Madison and 7th Streets.

Browne’s request has enjoyed solid support during public commentary time at meetings of the county commissioners starting in August.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Githens said, “We’re happy to work with the election board and negotiate options to hear their suggestions, but only if the dialogue is respectful.”

That dialogue could continue this week, at a joint meeting between commissioners and the election board, which has been set for Thursday at 1 p.m.

That’s when commissioners want the election board to take a vote on the alternate space that the commissioners have offered to the election division. Continue reading “Can Monroe County commissioners, election board bury beefs before 2022?” →

County commissioner described as mocking county clerk, as tough talks on election space continue

Two local groups have issued statements about Zoom video-conference footage from a Monday meeting between county commissioners and the county election board, to discuss needs for physical space.

“One of our commissioners openly mocked our elected county clerk on screen,” reads part of the statement from the Monroe County chapter of the National Organization for Women about the video footage.

Naming the commissioner and the clerk was a statement from the Monroe County Black Democratic Caucus, issued by its president, William Hosea: “Monroe County Commissioner Lee Jones appears to be openly mocking the person who’s speaking. The target of her contemptuous disdain is Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne.”

Reached by The B Square, Jones said the target of her disdain was her cat. Jones says the cat was playing with yarn from a knitting project that Jones was unraveling, and hit her computer keyboard, switching on her camera.

Jones is one of three county commissioners and represents District 1, on the west side of the county, but is elected by voters countywide. As county clerk, Browne is also elected by voters countywide. The seats for both four-year terms are up for election in 2022. Continue reading “County commissioner described as mocking county clerk, as tough talks on election space continue” →

Monroe County election board member on voting logistics: “We don’t want to be forced to make lemonade out of lemons.”

B Square file photo of Election Central in the old Johnson Hardware building on the corner of 7th and Madison streets.
Monroe County election board meeting (Sept. 2, 2021)

Monroe County commissioners want the election board to consider an approach to early voting that would use more than one location for voters to cast their ballots ahead of election day.

County commissioners would also like the election board to pursue the option of establishing “vote centers” for voting on election day. Such an approach would allow voters to cast a ballot at any county vote center, not at one assigned polling site.

Those two elements made up part of the message delivered on Thursday to the election board by president of the county commissioners, Julie Thomas.

All three commissioners attended Thursday’s meeting of the election board, to continue an ongoing debate over the space allocation for the election division.

The other key part of the message from Thomas on Thursday was a determination that the second floor of the Election Central building would remain allocated to the county’s community corrections department (probation), and not be assigned to the elections division. Continue reading “Monroe County election board member on voting logistics: “We don’t want to be forced to make lemonade out of lemons.”” →

Election division physical space needs: County officials meet again this week, open house scheduled

B Square file photo of early voting for the 2020 general election at Election Central.
B Square file photo of Election Central in the old Johnson Hardware building on the corner of 7th and Madison streets.

On the Wednesday morning regular meeting agenda of the Monroe County commissioners is a resolution that will establish a committee to handle the review of voting precincts and districts in light of the 2020 US Census results.

As significant as that action is, it’s not the main election news for this week in Monroe County.

On Wednesday (Sept. 1), the county commissioners will hear from county clerk Nicole Browne for the fourth time in as many weeks on the topic of space needs for the election division. The elections division is currently housed on the first floor of the old Johnson Hardware building at Madison and 7th streets. The building is known as Election Central.

Browne has told commissioners that space requirements for year-round election work and early voting point to allocation of the whole building to elections. That includes the second floor, which is currently home to the county’s probation department.

At each of the Aug. 18 and Aug. 25 regular meetings of the commissioners, at least half dozen people, all with a fair amount of community clout, spoke in support of Browne’s request. Among them were two clerks from other Indiana counties. Continue reading “Election division physical space needs: County officials meet again this week, open house scheduled” →

Week 1 of early voting in Monroe County in the books: 3,662 in-person ballots cast

Monroe County election supervisor Karen Wheeler minds the end of the line of early voters after 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, 2020 outside Election Central. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)
A few of the choices on the ballot might give some voters paws. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)
Any kind of dog can be a pointer. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)

At the end of the first week of early voting in Monroe County, Indiana, the tally of ballots cast in person stood at 3,662.

With Election Central open from 8 a.m to 6 p.m. starting Tuesday, that total, averaged over 40 hours, works out to a throughput of about 92 voters per hour.

By day the totals were: Tuesday (899), Wednesday (857), Thursday (933) and Friday (973). Based on the persistent lines, those numbers are probably an indicator of the maximum pace for processing voters.

At that same pace, the 208 hours of early voting that are scheduled before the Nov. 3 election would yield around 19,000 voted ballots.

The latest figure from the county clerk’s office for the number of absentee mail-in ballots that have been requested is around 13,000.

That projects to at least 32,000 people voting before Election Day this year. That total could go higher, because vote-by-mail absentee ballots can still be requested. Continue reading “Week 1 of early voting in Monroe County in the books: 3,662 in-person ballots cast” →