The Vanderburgh County clerk is hoping to avoid rejected ballots and long election nights in the future. WNIN’s John Gibson reports:
159 ballots cast in Vanderburgh County during the midterm elections had to be thrown out because they were not initialed by two poll workers – one Republican and one Democrat -- as required by Indiana law.
County Clerk Carla Hayden says the mistakes were made at early voting sites. One possible solution:
"We are looking at some of the worst offenders of the poll workers and maybe just not ask them back for the future elections."
Hayden says she hates to see anybody’s vote not count.
Early voting attributed for about 17,000 of the nearly 48,000 ballots cast on November 8th.
Meanwhile, Hayden says officials are looking for ways to count more ballots sooner on Election Day.
She says the Election Board is considering changing the sequence of the counting, moving mail-in ballots to the end:
"It would speed-up and get some results out faster. So, that the last group was a smaller group that's going to have the least amount of impact."
Hayden says one factor that slows vote counting is a state law that prohibits tabulating early ballots before Election Day:
"Until Indiana law changes that we are able to start opening ballots before Election Day, it's still going to take a long time to count all of those ballots in one day."
Next year’s elections will include mayor and city council seats.