Delaware County to make another attempt at adopting vote centers

Delaware County is reviving a discussion from 2023 on whether to switch to vote centers for local elections. IPR’s Thomas Ouellette reports.

Delaware County used 44 polling locations throughout the county in the 2024 elections.  The proposed vote center map drops that number by about half.  But voters could then cast ballots at any of those sites – not just at their designated precinct.

County Clerk Rick Spangler says vote centers are also convenient for the county government.

“It makes it so much easier for me as the clerk to run the election, because it cuts the number of workers I have to have in half, first of all,” said Spangler. “It gives the voters the ability to vote at any site where now they have to vote in their precinct, and we’re able to give the satellite sites and early voting more of an option for people too.”

Fewer polling locations would also require fewer voting machines. Spangler says while the county would only have a small number of machines to get rid of, they are the latest equipment on the market and can be sold to other counties.

During the meeting, Spangler asked board members creating the plan to keep the maximum number of vote centers to 24, due to staffing shortfalls, a trend across the state.

Delaware County Democratic Party Chair Andrew Dale told Spangler that would no longer be an issue with the Democrats.

“I can make a promise, you will not have that issue with us now,” Dale said. “So, if it’s about workers, we have solved that on our side of the equation…. We will come to the table and we’ll be very participatory.”

Delaware County considered vote centers in 2022 and 2023, hoping to have them in place for the May 2023 election.  But the election board vote to authorize them had to be unanimous, and the board’s Democratic representative cast a surprising no vote.

Spangler says he believes the main obstacle standing in the way of vote centers is partisan concern.

“Both sides always fear that they’re given the other side, the other party, an advantage,” he said. “With vote center voting, I really don’t believe that that is, but it’s what’s in the back of their minds, and it’s what stopped it every time before.”

According to the Secretary of State’s office, 65 of Indiana’s 92 counties already use vote centers.

Spangler says he has faith this year will prove successful when the election board votes next month.

Thomas Ouellette is our reporter and producer.  Contact him at [email protected]