Brown County Election Board to county ‘questionable’ initialed ballots from primary

By The Brown County Democrat

BROWN COUNTY — The Brown County Election Board has decided to count all 122 ballots that were pulled out because of questionable initials when the board meets this Friday afternoon.

The ballots, all from absentee voters, were turned over to the Brown County prosecutor’s office and then to state police after voting ended on June 2. They were not counted with all other votes.

Election board members Amy Kelso, a Democrat, and Mark Williams, a Republican, set those ballots aside on primary election day after noticing initials that did not match theirs or Democrat proxy Michael Fulton’s. A Democrat and a Republican election board representative are supposed to initial each ballot before it is given to a voter.

All absentee ballots — including the 122 — were first reviewed by a bipartisan team from the absentee voter board to make sure that they had other required elements to be counted, such as a valid Brown County voter’s name and matching voter signatures on the ballot application and the ballot return envelope.

Because Kelso and Williams do not believe that voters were “complicit in any improper act with the vote including fraud,” they decided this evening to go ahead and let the ballots count. That vote on Williams’ motion was 3-0 with Brown County Clerk and election board member Kathy Smith also in favor.

Counting of those ballots will be done Friday, June 12 at a meeting that had already been set to certify the election results. It’ll start at 12:30 p.m. By law, that certification has to be done 10 days after the election by 3 p.m. that day.

The same electronic vote counting equipment that was used to count all other ballots will be used to count these 122. After that count is done, those ballots will be returned to the custody of law enforcement.

Indiana State Police Inspector Dave Makowsky brought the sealed envelope of ballots to tonight’s election board meeting, as the board had planned to physically inspect them at this meeting. However, if they’re going to use the voting machines to count them — which weren’t set up for tonight’s meeting — Prosecutor Ted Adams said he’d prefer for the envelope to only be opened once.

Smith is in charge of the election process with the board’s support. She brought an attorney with her to this meeting. Kevin Koons said he was acting on her behalf in her role as county clerk.

The board also voted tonight to have the Indiana secretary of state’s office do a “risk-limiting audit” of the election results. That is a check of whether or not the results of an election were tallied correctly, such as comparing paper ballots to computer records of those ballots. Smith voted against that audit. It passed.

Williams also made a motion to appoint himself as secretary of tonight’s meeting since minutes of election board meetings have not been presented to board members for their approval since January. Smith serves as secretary of the election board. She voted against that motion. It passed.

The board also voted to allow the county attorney and the prosecutor’s office to “take all action they, or either of them deem necessary” if Smith would refuse to certify the election results at Friday’s meeting.

Kelso said that Smith had made threats about not certifying the election on more than one occasion. Williams said he also had heard Smith say that, in reference to Kelso and Williams removing these 122 ballots from her custody.

After conferring privately with her attorney, Smith seconded that motion and voted in favor of it. It passed unanimously.

The election board meeting on Friday afternoon will take place mostly on Zoom with a small group allowed to attend in person to physically inspect the ballots and feed them through the vote counting machine. Those tallies will be added to the totals that were released by the clerk’s office on election day.

In a few cases, depending on how many Republican and how many Democrat ballots are among the 122 and how those people voted, the new votes could change the outcome of some races.

On the Republican ticket, only two votes separated Diana Biddle from Greg S. Smith in the race for Jackson 2 precinct committeeman. Biddle was leading. Greg Smith is Kathy Smith’s husband.

One vote separated Washington 2 precinct committeeman candidates Michael Magner and Larry Voris. Magner was leading.

Fifty-five votes separated Washington 1 precinct committeman candidates Karen Raub and Dave Redding. Redding was leading.

The 10-way race for six Republican state convention delegates was fairly close at the bottom of the field. Adding 122 votes would have made a difference and could have changed the outcome for any of those candidates. Smith was among the candidates who appeared to have won a state convention spot.

If nearly all the 122 ballots are Democrat ballots, they also could make a difference in the Democrat state convention delegate race, and in the U.S. Rep. Dist. 9 race in terms of which candidate Brown County favored. However, the ballots would not change the outcome of the Dist. 9 race overall.