Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the vote here sign outside the vote center inside NexusPark on the first day of early voting in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, April 4, 2023.
Requests for absentee-by-mail ballots for the Nov. 7 municipal election have gotten off to a slower start than four years ago.
As of the end of the day Tuesday, there had been 88 requests for absentee-by-mail ballots, according to the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office. By comparison, there had been 182 requests for absentee-by-mail ballot at the same point during the previous municipal election in 2019.
“It’s a little surprising that it’s not quite as high, but it has kind of been a slower roll out,” said Bartholomew County Election Administrator Taylor Seegraves. “It may just be a little too early at this point (to draw conclusions).”
The upcoming election is the first since state lawmakers expanded verification requirements to request an absentee-by-mail ballot earlier this year.
The new rules require voters to provide one of several identification numbers when requesting an absentee-by-mail ballot, including the last four digits of their Social Security number, an Indiana driver’s license number, a non-driver identification card number or a unique identifier for individuals who registered to vote many years ago.
Alternatively, voters have the option to provide a photocopy of their driver’s license, non-driver card, or another valid form of identification such as a passport or an identification card issued by a state university.
During the legislative session, Republicans said that the bill seeks to put identification requirements for absentee-by-mail ballots in line with what people must present when voting in person.
Democrats, for their part, said the bill adds “unnecessary barriers” to voting by mail and will be particularly difficult for some voters who are elderly, disabled or living in rural areas.
But after the new rules went info effect in July, the online platform to request absentee-by-mail ballots went down as state officials worked to comply the new voter identification requirements, The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.
While voters had alternative methods for applying for the ballots, some county election officials from both major parties expressed concerns and deemed the outage as “troubling” and “unjustifiable” for the voters, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Other officials said they had not encountered any problems.
“The Secretary of State has been providing resources and support to complete the application as quickly as possible,” spokeswoman Lindsey Eaton said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle.
“Cutting corners on the development, testing, bipartisan review, and approval,” she added, “is not an option.”
So far, the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office has not experienced any issues verifying voters’ information or receiving requests for absentee-by-mail ballots, Seegraves said. At the same time, officials said they were unsure if the state’s online platform being down impacted the number of requests they have received.
“It is now up and running,” Seegraves said of the online system. “The state did push to get that taken care of at the very end of last week. So, it is up and going, and we are receiving those online absentee applications now.”
An online verification system that links to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security Administration also “seems to be working very well,” she said.
The new rules in Indiana came amid a wave of Republican-backed legislation across the country that seeks to enact new limits on a process that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, including in Bartholomew County.
The trend began during the 2021 legislative session following false claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud in 2020 presidential election, including the false claim that mail voting “is a vehicle for widespread voter fraud,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute at New York University.
As of this past March, there were at least 80 bills in 23 states sought to restrict mail voting to varying extents, according to the institute.
A total of 6,549 local voters cast absentee-by-mail ballots in the 2020 general election locally — nearly 18% of all votes. By comparison, 1,536 voters in the county voted absentee-by-mail in the 2016 general election, or about 5% of all ballots cast.
There also was an increase in absentee-by-mail voting in the 2022 midterm compared to the 2018 midterm even as overall turnout declined. A total of 1,783 absentee-by-mail ballots were cast in Bartholomew County in last year’s general election, up from 1,547 during the 2018 general election.
Absentee-by-mail voting also was higher during this year’s municipal primary compared to the 2019 primary. A total of 261 people voted absentee by mail in the May 2 primary, up from 130 in the 2019 municipal primary.
Local election officials said previously that they rarely find any discrepancies between absentee-by-mail ballot applications and voter registration records. In addition, Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz said earlier this year there have been no cases of voter fraud in the county since she has been clerk or working at the clerk’s office.
Former Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps said in 2020 that he couldn’t recall the last time there was a case of voter fraud in Bartholomew County, but suspected it has been at least two decades and “probably a little farther back than that.”
Also in 2020, former Bartholomew County Prosecutor Bill Nash, who at the time had been serving as prosecutor for about 17 years, that he couldn’t recall any reports of voter fraud in the county being referred to his office.
The deadline for the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office to receive a request for an absentee-by-mail ballot is Oct. 26. The bipartisan Bartholomew County Election Board must receive completed absentee-by-mail ballots by 6 p.m. on Election Day.
The deadline to register to vote for the upcoming municipal election is Oct. 10.
Voters can register to vote online at indianavoters.in.gov or in person at the Bartholomew County Voter Registration Office inside the Bartholomew County Courthouse.
Only Columbus city residents are eligible to vote in the upcoming election. Offices on the ballot are Columbus mayor, city council races and the city clerk race.
Registration deadline
The deadline to register to vote for the upcoming municipal election is Oct. 10.
Voters can register to vote online at indianavoters.in.gov or in person at the Bartholomew County Voter Registration Office inside the Bartholomew County Courthouse.
Only Columbus city residents are eligible to vote in the upcoming election.
