Vote center bill gets unanimous Indiana Senate committee support

Mike Marturello and Dave Kurtz, Herald Republican

ANGOLA — Vote centers might become a reality in Indiana if a bill that passed out of a Senate committee Monday receives support from the entire Legislature.

Senate Bill 32, which gained unanimous support from the Senate Elections Committee, is estimated to potentially save counties up to 56 percent on the cost of administering elections, according to the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute. The bill now goes before the full Senate for first reading.

For the most part, county clerks in the northeastern four counties of Indiana favor vote centers. Clerks administer elections in each county.

The bill makes using vote centers an option for all counties. The proposal allows voters to cast ballots at any of the vote centers in their home counties. In counties that tried vote centers on a pilot basis, the number of polling places was reduced, saving the expense of operating polling places for all precincts.

Vote centers would make voting more convenient for everyone, since voters would not have to go to a specific precinct, said information from the Association of Indiana Counties.

Beverly Elliott, LaGrange County Clerk and president of the Indiana County Clerks Association, said she approves the vote-center concept, but doesn’t think they necessarily would benefit rural counties such as LaGrange.

“Due to the layout of our county, we don’t think they would work well,” Elliott said. She said her election board has looked into the subject.

Outside of sites in Shipshewana and the town of LaGrange, Elliott said there aren’t many other places that would be well suited to serving as vote centers.

“That’s our hangup right now, how to implement it,” she said.

Some of the test counties — Cass, Tippecanoe and Wayne — used shopping centers as vote centers.

In a report released Friday, the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute predicted every county in Indiana would save money by converting to vote centers. The estimates show a savings range from 56 percent in Martin County to a low of 20 percent in Hancock County.

In the four-county area, the study shows an estimated 44 percent savings in DeKalb County, 37 percent savings in Noble County, 32 percent savings in LaGrange County and 25 percent savings in Steuben County.

DeKalb County Clerk Marty Grimm said she strongly supports using vote centers.

Grimm said the study predicts DeKalb County would save $25,000 a year by using vote centers. She believes the actual savings would be “fairly close or, I’m hoping, more.”

To serve 27,000 registered voters in DeKalb County, “We would be looking at, at least, four or five vote-center locations,” and the county might need six, Grimm said. That compares to 21 voting locations DeKalb County used in last year’s elections to serve its 39 precincts.

Noble County Clerk Candy Myers responded with an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” when asked if she supports using vote centers.

“It’s going to save the county money. It’s just a no-brainer to have vote centers,” Myers said Monday.

“Since we have consolidated a few more of our voting locations, that’s my goal” to move to vote centers, Myers said.

Noble County combined 29 voting sites into 19 last year. It saved around $5,000 in the fall election, Myers said.

“Just think what vote centers would do!” she added.

“My ideal situation would be that the schools would be closed on Election Day, and we could use the schools” as vote centers, Myers said. Setting up vote centers in the county’s three high schools would work perfectly, she added.