Porter County workers process mail-in votes
More than 7,000 absentee ballots sent out Friday alone
Officials in Porter County’s Elections and Voter Registration Office half-joke that their office on the lower level of the Porter County Administration Center looks like a war zone.
They aren’t wrong. Clusters of full- and part-time employees stuff envelopes with flyers to ready them for absentee ballots while answering phones. Others handle online requests for ballots or put the ballots in envelopes.
The days are long and the pressure is constant as the office grapples with a historic number of absentee ballot requests for the presidential election.
“It’s insane,” Clerk Jessica Bailey said Tuesday, noting the long hours for employees, who still find time to laugh and blow off steam, particularly after 4:30 p.m. when official business hours and the stream of phone calls stop and employees can crank up some music. “We have plenty of chocolate.”
The office sent out 7,121 ballots on Friday, the first day they could go out, and sent out another 800 on Monday.
That’s already more mail-in ballots than in past general elections here. During the 2018 mid-term election, the county handled 3,181 absentee ballots; that figure was 3,166 ballots for 2016, which also was a presidential election year.
This year’s primary, pushed to June from May because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which also is upping the demand for mail-in ballots from voters weary of going to the polls in the midst of a public health crisis, had around 12,000 mail-in ballots, Bailey said, which also was a record.
Requests for ballots have to be fulfilled the next day, Bailey said, with the exception of those received on Friday.
“It’s definitely going to keep coming in. It’s not at a standstill by any means,” she said.
The office has four full-time employees and seven part-time workers assisting with the ballot requests, said Sundae Schoon, director of the office.
“It’s definitely taken over the office,” she said, adding the office needs more part-time staff to handle the increased workload as the election draws closer.
Election officials already have a plan for handling the influx of early ballots on Nov. 3. A bipartisan central count team will begin running the county’s highspeed ballot counter, which will be located at the Porter County Expo Center along with election staff to allow for social distancing, at 7 a.m. that morning, Bailey said.
Any ballots received in the mail in the afternoon can be run then, she said.
During the primary, when the Expo Center also served as the Election Day nerve center, the central count team held off running the machine until the afternoon, after the final ballots came in the mail.
The counter, along with new electronic pollbooks and voting machines, came into play for the first time during last year’s municipal elections. Election officials said then that having voters, poll workers and election staff get used to the machines before a presidential election would prepare them for this year.
Using the counter in the municipal elections and this year’s primary generated confidence in the machine’s ability to provide accurate results.
“We’ve used it for three elections and all the numbers have matched,” Bailey said, adding election officials will still use checks and balances to assure results but won’t have to wait until all of the absentee ballots are in hand to do so.
Voters who plan to cast ballots in the mail, Bailey said, can go to indianavoters.com to check when the county received their application; when the ballot was sent out; and when the county received the ballot.
Additional information can be found under “Elections and Voting” at porterco.org.