Straight-party voters could impact at-large candidates’ chances

Straight-party voters may want to be ready to fill in a couple extra bubbles in the November election.

A recent change caused by Senate Bill 61 will require voters to individually choose the at-large candidates on the ballot even if they choose a straight-party ticket.

State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 61 in an effort to rectify a technical glitch with voting-machines utilized by about five Indiana counties. Those machines would not record votes for races involving multiple candidates if the voter chose a straight-party option. In these counties, election officials had to hand-count the straight-party ballots to determine the winners in at-large races.

According to Dubois County Clerk Bridgette Jarboe, the county’s polling vendor, MicroVote, does not have that problem. However, although Microvote is used in a majority of counties in the state, lawmakers decided this was the best option to fix the problems with this other polling service provider.

With the new procedure, voters who chose straight-party voting will have to manually choose the candidates running for at-large seats.

In addition to changing the polling procedure, those races will also be moved to the end of the ballot.

According to Jarboe, the changes won’t cost Dubois County any money  but could cause some confusion in November for voters used to making a quick straight-ticket decision.

“The issue is just going to be educating the voters,” she explained. “We plan on creating notices at the polling stations to inform voters of the changes when they come in to vote.”

Paper ballots will have the changes noted at the top of the ballot.

The ballot for Dubois County has not been completed since the national choices are won’t be finalized until July.

Jarboe indicated the practice of choosing a straight-ticket is prevalent in Dubois County.

In November, Dubois County voters will be deciding on the three at-large seats on the Dubois County Council.