Commissioners approve per diem for absentee counter poll workers

At Monday’s County Commissioner meeting, County Clerk Deb Vandemark informed the Commissioners of a change made by the State Board of Accounts.

“The State Board of Accounts recently did a webinar with the clerks and addressed per diem for absentee counter poll workers. And the Indiana Code states that the absentee counter pay shall be determined by the County Commissioners,” Vandemark stated.

The issue came to hiring additional absentee vote counters as far as how much to set the per diem, daily rate. At the prior Election Board meeting, $145 per day was recommended by the board.

“We’ve never had extra counters in the office on Election Day. Usually it’s just the board and the machine techs,” Vandemark said.

In this year’s Primary elec

tion, Vandemark stated that they were being paid $12.85 an hour. For a 12 hour day, that would equal $154.20.

Commissioner Stan Klotz asked if Vandemark had the extra funds in her department, but she stated that an additional appropriation would be placed in front of the County Council for approval.

“This election is different from any we’ve had in the past with the COVID and everything,” Vandemark said.

County Attorney James Clevenger asked if the extra counters would be expected to work a 12-hour day.

“We will probably start opening ballots around 7 a.m. in the morning and we hope to have results at 6 p.m. which I can’t guarantee that because it depends on how many of these we get through,” she said.

Vandemark went on to say that on Friday, Oct. 16 the Election Office had mailed out 2,580 ballots. Those ballots have to be opened on Election Day and processed through the reader.

“Each ballot will need to be opened, pulled out of the envelope, and sorted with a Democrat and Republican, and then they’ll all need to go through the card reader,” Vandemark said.

On that Friday, Vandemark said that 317 voters had been processed for early voting. “So far, just in nine days, we’ve had 2,300 people come through our office,” she said.

The workers that are processing early voters are currently being paid $80 per day. “They’re very busy. They’re not getting any breaks. They’re doing it because of the service,” Vandemark said.

The commissioners approved the recommendation of $145 per day for the absentee counter poll workers.

Vandemark also requested permission to apply for a CARES Grant from the Secretary of State Election Division. She stated that she received an email the Secretary of State indicating that there would be funds available to reimburse the county for additional expenses of the primary election. After sending an amount to the Secretary of State’s office, Vandemark stated that they’d received an award letter.

“They approved it. It came in an award letter. It was approved. I was kind of shocked, how quick it happened,” she said.

Due to the short deadline for application, Vandemark wasn’t able to seek approval from the commissioners beforehand. The commissioners approved her application to the grant. Vandemark will now seek similar approval from the County Council.

Vandemark stated that there would be a similar application for the upcoming election. She expects a Nov. 30 application deadline.