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Push to get voters to cast ballots early is overwhelming success

Members of the Huntington County Election Board go over tallies of votes cast in the primary election on Tuesday, May 3. Pictured are (from left) Kittie Keiffer, Huntington County Clerk; Linda Beatty, Democrat Party representative and president of the election board; Ryan Wall, MicroVote technician; and Lori Guy, Republican Party representative.
Members of the Huntington County Election Board go over tallies of votes cast in the primary election on Tuesday, May 3. Pictured are (from left) Kittie Keiffer, Huntington County Clerk; Linda Beatty, Democrat Party representative and president of the election board; Ryan Wall, MicroVote technician; and Lori Guy, Republican Party representative. Photo by Rebecca Sandlin.

The push to get Huntington County voters to cast their ballots early met with overwhelming success, with 3,255 votes cast during the month leading up to the primary election on Tuesday, May 3.

That’s more than five times the number of absentee ballots cast in 2012, the most recent presidential primary.

“I don’t know what it is,” says Pam Fowler, voter registration and election deputy in the Huntington County Clerk’s office, of the increase.

“I don’t know if it’s just us, or if it’s the political climate.”

Total voter turnout for the 2016 primary in Huntington County was 10,759, 42.14 percent of the county’s 25,698 registered voters.

That compares to a 25.37 percent turnout in the 2012 primary, also a presidential year, when 6,334 of the county’s 24,964 registered voters cast ballots.

However, in 2008, the previous primary featuring a presidential race, turnout in Huntington County reached a 40.56 percent turnout.

In other years, Huntington County Clerk Kittie Keiffer says, the primary turnout percentage usually sits in the mid-20s.

On Tuesday, the Huntington Church of the Nazarene proved the busiest site, averaging 120 voters per hour and ending the day with the most total voters.

Keiffer reported no issues or machine breakdowns at any of the vote centers on Tuesday, but several of the vote centers remained open past 6 p.m. to allow voting by those in line at the 6 p.m. cutoff.

This election is the first county-wide — and presidential — primary utilizing vote centers in Huntington County, a factor Fowler says could have contributed to the uptick in early voting.

“We did have really good turnout at the voting satellites,” she says.

Vote centers were used for the first time in Huntington County for the primary and general elections in 2015, a municipal election year with races only in Huntington, Andrews and Markle. The smaller election gave local officials a chance to ease into the system.

With vote centers, registered voters can vote at any of several voting sites set up throughout the county, rather than being assigned to a specific voting location by precinct. Voters could cast ballots on any of 28 days prior to May 3, Fowler notes.

Voting was held in the Huntington County Courthouse April 5 through May 2, and, during the week of April 26, at locations in Andrews, Markle, Roanoke and Huntington.

The voting site at the courthouse had a line of voters waiting to cast ballots on Monday just before noon, when the site was scheduled to close. That site had also been open all day on Saturday, April 30, when 205 voters cast ballots; 128 people voted early at the courthouse on Monday.

“We’re here for 28 days, but they still wait until those last two days to vote,” Fowler says.

A total of 1,614 people voted early at the courthouse over those 28 days.

Outside the courthouse, the Parkview Huntington YMCA, which was open three days for early voting, drew the most voters at 500.

The voting site at the Cottage Event Center, in Roanoke, was also popular, drawing 287 voters over two days. That site drew voters from Andrews and Markle as well as Roanoke, and Fowler speculates that they may have found the location a convenient place to stop and vote while driving to Fort Wayne.

The American Legion Post 85, in Huntington, counted 283 voters over three days.

“Andrews and Markle were not the best turnouts in the world,” Fowler says.

Each of those locations was open for just one day, with Andrews drawing 118 voters and Markle counting 84.

The courthouse, American Legion, YMCA and the Cottage Event Center served as voting sites again on May 3, along with the Huntington Church of the Nazarene and the Warren Church of Christ. The American Legion and the Warren Church of Christ each had eight voting machines; each of the other four locations had 10 machines on May 3.

Fowler says she believes the use of vote centers and early voting seems to have been received well by the public.

“I sure think so,” she says, citing the convenience of a variety of times and locations available to vote. “But not everyone likes change, and we’re never going to make everybody happy.”

A traveling board is available to visit voters in nursing homes and those unable to leave their homes, and voters are also able to arrange to vote by mail. Nearly 400 votes were cast through those two methods.

Fowler says the vote centers used for this election will be evaluated before any decision is made on sites for future elections.

“Every election, we have to verify that we can have the locations and that they work for us,” she says.