Voter registration in final weeks

Mike Grant, Washington Times-Herald, Ind.
·2 min read

Sep. 27—The ballots are in the mail and time is running short for voters to get registered for the Nov. 8 election. County clerks have sent out mail-in absentee ballots to those who have requested them.

"We actually mailed them out on Friday," said Daviess County Court Clerk Janice Williams. "We sent out 31 by mail and three by email."

The voter registration rolls remain open. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 11.

"They can do that in our office or they can register online at indianavoters.com and at the license branch," said Williams. "Registration is going OK. We haven't had a ton of people coming in but we have had some new registrations. These last weeks I feel like we get more people going on line. We get more registrations through that method."

In many parts of the country, voter rolls began to swell following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturned the abortion laws. Most of those new voters were women.

"We haven't noticed anything like that in our office," said Williams.

Early voting will take place at the Daviess County Courthouse starting Oct. 12 and will continue through noon on Nov. 7.

Williams says the election board is beginning to put the finishing touches on the upcoming election.

"We are doing the public test this week on the voting machines," she said. "Once we do that, those will be ready. We have to do those each time prior to an election. It consists of checking 5% of the machines we plan to use for the election, we test those and make sure they are working properly and we also test the absentee scanner and the tally card system and make sure it is all working properly."

This is what is called a mid-term election. The president is not on the ballot, but people will have choices for U.S. senator and congressman, several state house offices, at least one legislative seat and some school board races. Most of the county and township offices are unopposed.

Williams says that with the election coming up, there is a need for people to work the polls.

"If people want to be a poll worker on Election Day, they should contact our office," said Williams. "This is a good chance for people to get involved."