Bills reducing early-voting period, closing primaries head to Senate floor

Hoosier voters could see in-person early voting slashed from a month to a week under legislation moving to the Indiana Senate’s floor.

A committee on Monday also approved a proposal closing primary elections to unaffiliated voters, but held off on another requiring school board candidates to get partisan.

Under current law, voters can cast ballots in person for 28 days ahead of elections. After a Monday amendment, Senate Bill 284 would reduce that period to 14 days. The original version called for cutting the period to just seven days.

Clerks have complained that it’s too hard to staff early-voting centers for so long, particularly when so few Hoosiers vote during the first half of the period compared to the second half, bill author Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrnesville, told the Senate’s Elections Committee.

Before the committee’s 6-3 vote, he called his proposal “common-sense” and said voting was easier now than when his ancestors had to drive a horse and buggy miles to vote.

Multiple witnesses, however, feared the change could worsen already-long early-voting lines or drop already-low turnout. Indiana’s voter participation rate has historically been among the nation’s lowest.

“Hoosier voters like early in-person voting, and certainly in central Indiana, early voting is busy from the first day to the last day—so busy that people are waiting in line (for) two, three hours at early-voting locations in Marion and in Hamilton counties,” said Julia Vaughn, leader of elections watchdog Common Cause Indiana. “We don’t need less early voting in Indiana. We need more of it.”

Vaughn noted that elderly and disabled voters already struggle to stand in line for so long.

The current 28-day early voting period “is one of the few things that Indiana does right when it comes to election policy. It’s not broken—please don’t fix it,” Vaughn said, to applause.

Chris Daley, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said Indiana Code already contains exceptions for counties struggling to operate vote centers for the full 28 days.

“Unfortunately, this is a one-size prohibition on those counties who do utilize the whole 28 days, and the citizens in those counties who need that period of time to make sure that they can vote,” Daley added.

Locals also spoke out.

“Early voting is huge in Lake County,” Michelle Fajman said. She asked lawmakers to either reconsider, or to allow counties the discretion to expand early voting locally.

In the past, lawmakers have used the long early-voting period as a reason not to expand vote-by-mail in Indiana.

The lone witness in support was Keegan Prentice, legislative director for the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office. Secretary Diego Morales is Indiana’s top elections official.

“Early voting is also about the balance of how many voters we’re getting now to vote and the costs of those elections we’re holding,” Prentice said.

On average in the 2016 and 2020 general elections, about 24% of early voters cast their ballots in person during the first two weeks of Indiana’s 28-day period, according to Prentice. The percentage was lower for primary elections in those years.

He and multiple committee members pushed to increase the number of early-voting locations.

Prentice suggested codifying into law a mandated number of locations based on number of registered voters.

Byrne, the author, supports that shift.

He told the Capital Chronicle that savings found by cutting the early voting period could be redirected toward boosting location count.

“That money would be able to be used more wisely, opening up more options for people to vote. And I think that’s where we’re going to be going with this,” Bryne said.

A fiscal analysis by the Legislative Services Agency showed that county circuit court clerks and election boards would see reductions in staff time, poll worker per diem, ballots printed and electronic voting system energy use. But, it said, “Any savings would likely be minimal.”

Closing primaries

Indiana’s voters currently can ask for either a Democratic or Republican Party ballot while voting in a primary election. There’s no need to “register” with a party to do so.

Senate Bill 201, approved in a 7-2 vote, would end that.

It would add new text to voter registration forms: “Would you like to choose your political party? If you wish to vote in a primary election, you must first choose your political party affiliation and may only vote that party’s ballot in the primary election.”

Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, said there’s “concern in several areas of the state that people are voting in the primary (for a) party that they don’t really intellectually identify with.” He authored the bill and chairs the committee.

Gaskill’s legislation would also require county voter registration offices to affiliate every registered voter with either the Democratic or Republican Party based on their last primary election vote. A voter would be able to change parties at any time by using a new voter affiliation form — except for a “blackout period” 119 days before a primary election.

“I think, in November, voters are free to pick anyone that they choose,” Gaskill said. “… I view primary elections as a nominating process rather than an election. They don’t have the same consequences that a general election has.”

Vaughn, of Common Cause Indiana, said the changes would lock independent voters out of primary elections, driving down voter participation. About a quarter of Hoosier voters consider themselves independent, according to Vaughn.

And most of Indiana’s legislative districts are drawn so that they’re easily Democrat or easily Republican, meaning independents or members of the disfavored party would have little chance of influencing who takes office.

“Too many races in our state … are decided at the primary,” Vaughn said.

Matthew Kochevar, the Democrat co-general counsel at the Indiana Election Division, testified as neutral. But, he told lawmakers, the auto-affiliation provision could confuse and anger Hoosiers who haven’t cast a primary vote in a long time.

“Given that it takes time for voters to learn about the laws that are adopted by the General Assembly, some of those voters may end up calling county voter registration offices … questioning why they are now affiliated with a party that they may not, at present time, support.”

Making school boards partisan

A third measure racked up more than two dozen witnesses, with nearly each one limited to just one minute of testimony before Gaskill’s timer rang out. It didn’t get a vote—yet.

Senate Bill 287, also from Byrne, would require school board candidates to declare a political party and run in primary elections. They’re currently nonpartisan.

“You’re going to hear testimony that we want to keep this a nonpartisan (body) … which sounds, you know, nice, I guess,” Byrne said. But Byrne, who served eight years on a school board, added, “I found it to be one of the more partisan positions that I ever served.”

“The idea that these elections are neutral is a deception that misleads voters,” he continued. “School board decisions are inherently political, shaping politics on curriculum, parents’ rights, school safety and fiscal management, often overseeing the largest budget in the community.”

Several committee members expressed skepticism, with Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute, noting that school board candidates can already put their party affiliations on their campaign materials. Gaskill, meanwhile, hinted at a forthcoming amendment undoing the bill’s high signature requirements for independents.

School board members turned out in force to oppose the legislation.

Erica Jamison, a newly elected member of Northwest Allen County Schools’ board, said she faced an opponent running a hyper-partisan campaign. Her signs were vandalized and stolen, and she was slandered on social media, sparking safety concerns. She still won.

“I was labeled by supporters of his candidacy as many things I am not, and believe that is why I endured such cruel treatment,” Jamison told the committee. She said taking school boards overtly partisan would heighten “negativity” and make running for the boards “more dangerous.”

Many witnesses countered Byrne’s experience of partisanship.

David Finkel identified himself as a GOP precinct committeeman but said he’s “never had partisan issues” come up during his 15 years serving on the Shelbyville Central Schools board. He added, “Let’s keep that rhetoric out of our school boards and let us focus on education.”

“Children do not come to school with Rs and Ds on their foreheads. Our job is to make decisions on what is best for our children, not based upon politics,” said Joel Hand, representing the American Federation of Teachers’ Indiana chapter and the Indiana Coalition for Public Education.

Others feared uneducated voters and extreme candidates.

“The voters who are likely to be influenced by these (party) labels are those that have not done their research. Do we want those people deciding elections for us?” asked Robert Savage, a board member for the Elwood Community Schools Corp.

“I just want to know: who is looking at the state of modern American education saying, ‘You know what this thing needs? More politicians,’” said Concord Community Schools board member Mike Malooley.

Numerous school board members from across the state said they would not have joined if they’d had to go partisan or become politicians. Several working for the judiciary or for federal employers–like the military–said Indiana’s Code of Judicial Conduct and the Hatch Act would bar them from taking partisan elected office, ending their school board service.

Just one witness spoke in support: Carlin Yoder, a former Indiana lawmaker representing the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative Florida-based think tank.

He noted voter participation in school board races was down, asserting that Hoosiers were reaching the bottom of the ballot and choosing not to pick candidates “because they have no idea who they’re voting for or the ideology of these members.”

The bill would boost turnout and “empower” parents and other taxpayers, Yoder said.

“It’s very hard for me to hear people say, ‘These are nonpartisan elections, and … keep it that way.’ They’re as partisan as any other election out there,” he concluded. “I would urge your support in allowing parents and taxpayers to have a better idea of the ideology of individuals that they are electing to run these schools.”

Byrne also encouraged committee members to review a packet, which he said included letters from school board members who did support his bill.

Previous attempts to make school boards partisan have failed.

Senate Bill 287 would also raise board member pay from the current $2,000 maximum by tying compensation to 10% of starting teacher salaries. The state has a $40,000 minimum—which would double school board pay—but new Gov. Mike Braun wants to land at $45,000.

Shelbyville Central Schools’ Finkel opposed the hike, saying, “We serve for the good of it, not for the pay.”

Gaskill expected to take amendments and a vote on the proposal next week.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.