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Hundreds of voters stood in a line that wrapped around Lugar Plaza outside the Indianapolis City-County Building as early voting closed Monday at noon.
Justin Hart, 25, a voter leaving the building at noon, told IBJ he had waited two hours to vote. Ben Caudell, 39, of Lawrence, said he took the day off in order to make it out to vote because he wants to see change. Caudell arrived at 10:15 a.m., he said, and still had a few dozen others ahead of him at 12:07 p.m.
Early voting has been popular both locally and nationwide this election. More than 74 million people had already cast their ballots nationally as of Saturday, which is nearly 47 percent the total number cast in the 2020 presidential election, according to The Washington Post.
While statewide numbers are down from 2020’s pandemic election, early voting is far outpacing 2016—aligning with the uptick seen across several states.
On Sunday, the count of Marion County voters who cast ballots early in person exceeded that of 2020 by about 2,000. Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell told IBJ it’s clear that “people have something to say.”
The City-County Building was the only vote center in Indianapolis open Monday. Eight others across the county were open from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3.
Election Board workers James Sample and Chris Becker began turning away voters at the end of the line—which had wrapped around to end just across the street from the Julia M. Carson Transit Center—at about 12:03 p.m. They told voters to go to a vote center near them tomorrow, on Election Day.
Sample, the absentee in-person voting manager, said the line was the longest it has been at the City-County Building. Bell attributed it to procrastination.
Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m Tuesday. Marion County vote center locations can be found here.
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The one thing the Marion County Republican Party is good at is… is making it hard to vote early in Marion County.
It helps when the three largest counties in Indiana play under one set of rules and the other 89 play under another set… and the GOP can insist that Indianapolis give every township the same number of early voting sites or it’s no dice. That the same people who complain about Indianapolis wasting money would insist that Decatur Township (just under 37,000 of the 977,000 residents of Marion County) get the same number of sites as six other townships which have over 100,000 people … just seems odd. It’s almost as though Statehouse Republicans want to make just a little bit harder for legal citizens to vote. I wonder why that would be?
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2017/08/10/silencing-vote-data-shows-unequal-barrier-indiana-polls/435450001/
Joe is correct. We ranked 41st in voter turnout 2020. I hope to see some of the conservative comment warriors emerge from their bunkers to try and defend our shameful statistics. We can do better, but that would require Republicans to legislate for their constituents….so I won’t hold my breathe.
This is voter suppression.
Indiana’s Super Stupid Super Majority party feels no need to listen to anyone the would not kiss Donald TRUMP’s “ring” to stay in his cult.
Interesting, as I was in and out from my voting location in Center township this morning in less than 10 minutes. Absolutely no line and no wait, and I was only the 50th vote at 6:49 am.
That wouldn’t qualify as ‘early voting’ then, would it?