Jay Co. ballot issue found

There was an error on ballots in Jay County that allowed voters to cast a choice in a race in which they were not eligible to vote.

Jay County Clerk Jon Eads in an email Thursday morning notified local media of a ballot problem involving the District 33 and District 79 state representative positions. The issue was discovered Oct. 11.

Both state representative districts were on all Jay County ballots. District 79 should have only been available for voting in the Penn, Jackson, Bearcreek and Wabash precincts, with District 33 available only to voters in the Wayne 1, Wayne 2, Wayne 3, Wayne 4, Wayne 7,  Madison, Pike, Noble, Jefferson, Redkey, Dunkirk 1, Dunkirk 3, Green and Knox precincts. (District 79 covers the northern third of Jay County as well as all of Adams and Wells counties while District 33 covers the southern two-thirds of Jay County as well as all of Blackford and Randolph counties and part of Delaware and Henry counties.)

“It’s not that somebody couldn’t vote for somebody, it’s just that they were able to vote for somebody extra,” said Eads in a phone interview Thursday morning.

Incumbent Republican J.D. Prescott and Democrat John Bartlett are running in District 33. Incumbent Republican Matt Lehman is uncontested in District 79.

Eads said Portland resident John Coldren, a former state representative himself, noticed the issue while voting Oct. 11 and asked for Eads to be called.

Since the problem was discovered, Eads said he has been in contact with co-director of the Indiana Election Division Brad King regarding how to address the problem correctly. MicroVote, which provides the county’s voting machines, was called in over the weekend and fixed the problem. All ballots cast beginning Monday have been correct.

Letters have been sent to all voters who cast ballots on or before Oct. 11 offering them the opportunity to recast their vote. (Eads said about 600 ballots — about 500 in person and 100 by mail — had been cast prior to the problem being discovered.)

In the letter, Eads says “your current ballot is absolutely countable as is and will be processed as normal on election day should you choose not to recast your vote.”

He said Thursday morning it is his understanding that all votes, including those for seats in which a voter should not have been able to cast a ballot, will be counted.

The Commercial Review raised the question of fairness given that counting those ballots as cast could result in voters ineligible to vote in the District 33 race potentially impacting the outcome.

“I’m in the process of clarifying that with Brad King at the election division right now,” said Eads.

Shortly after noon Thursday, Eads confirmed the following via email:

“Unless a voter on or before October 11th recasts that vote, the vote casted will be counted as is, and no changes made. If ballot is recast the previous ballot will be voided and not counted.

“… this was confirmed from the Election Division.”