Associated Press: Indiana’s virus-delayed primary may mean lines, slow tallies
Associated Press: Indiana’s virus-delayed primary may mean lines, slow tallies
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s delayed and revamped primary election is about to conclude with the final votes being cast.
The coronavirus outbreak prompted state officials to push back the primary by four weeks and encourage mail-in voting. However, health concerns have morphed into worries about possibly thousands of uncounted ballots and lines Tuesday at in-person polling places as some counties slashed their number of voting sites.
Voting results might not be finalized Tuesday night in some counties as election workers across the state face counting more than 10 times the number of mail-in ballots than they received in the 2016 primary. …
The 22 polling places in Indianapolis will be down from its normal 270. Allen County, which includes Fort Wayne, has cut its sites from 116 to 25, while St. Joseph County will have 12 sites open Tuesday in and around South Bend rather than the 120 planned before the COVID-19 outbreak.
A lack of polling sites was blamed for long lines and health worries for voters in Wisconsin’s April primary.
Similar situations are possible in Indiana with so many fewer voting locations, said Julia Vaughn, policy director for the government accountability group Common Cause Indiana.
“You don’t have to be a math wizard to figure out that means longer lines, more congestion, more crowding,” Vaughn said. …
The Marion County clerk and some candidates say they are worried thousands of mail-in ballots could go uncounted by arriving to election offices after the noon Tuesday deadline as county workers and voters have dealt with the explosion in such balloting.
Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson rejected any move to extend that deadline for the nearly 550,000 mail-in ballots requested for the primary.
Vaughn said voters faced navigating a variety of deadlines for main-in balloting that a great number had never faced before.
“We expect the majority of votes to be cast by mail but we’re not a vote-by-mail state, so we’ve had to make this up as we go along,” Vaughn said.