St. Joe County voting machines test fine, but 27 voter forms rejected for lack of info

SOUTH BEND — The St. Joseph County Election Board authorized the county clerk’s office on Wednesday to reject voter registration forms for 27 people who didn’t provide enough information.

Also at the board’s meeting, Holy Cross College students helped to test about a dozen voting machines, a mere fraction of all the machines that will be used in this year’s spring primary and fall general elections. With the test, which was sort of a spot check, they certified that the machines are reading information from ballots correctly, county Election Clerk Kim Riskovitch said.

The election board met in a county warehouse where the machines are stored.

As for the 27 people whose forms were rejected, that’s a low number compared with other years, Riskovitch said.

“I’m very impressed,” she said. “It means the poll workers are doing their job.”

She explained that, when a registered voter moves, they can fill out a form to let the voter registration office know of their new address. It also allows the voter to vote in their old precinct one last time.

But sometimes the form is missing information like an identification number, a signature, a birth date or part of a Social Security Number. It happens in each election season, Riskovitch said. The voter registration office sets those forms aside and, for months, tries to reach the person multiple times by phone, mail and email to get the missing information.

The office needs to fill in the blanks or purge the forms before the voter registration deadline — in this case, April 8.

The 27 people whose forms were purged can still be sure they’re registered, Riskovitch said. In fact, if anyone isn’t sure whether or not they’re registered to vote in St. Joseph County, they can call the voter registration office at 574-235-9521 or check online at indianavoters.in.gov.

On April 8, those registering to vote must meet that deadline by the end of the business day if doing it in person or by 11:59 p.m. if doing it online at the indianavoters.in.gov site, or have it postmarked by April 8 if filing it in the mail.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Voter registration forms rejected at St. Joseph County election board