By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
September 1, 2025
Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales this week will host the second of three public meetings focused on presenting data and gathering comments about where and when elections are held.
Although the election study, which includes the public meetings, was mandated by the legislature, some lawmakers were critical that Morales was put in charge of it and, during the study’s first meeting in Muncie, Hoosiers wanting to give input on other issues related to how elections are run in Indiana were cut off and told they could only comment on the topics at hand.
After the Muncie public meeting, Morales explained that the input from attendees was limited by the mandate issued from the Indiana General Assembly.
“The General Assembly assigned me to host these public meetings and my work today is to stay on topic, because I must obviously present our findings to the General Assembly,” Morales said. “And, obviously, I’m here to do my job.”
Morales’ task in this matter is outlined in House Enrolled Act 1633, which was passed by the legislature during the 2025 session and signed into law by Gov. Mike Braun on April 22. The statute requires the secretary of state to study two specific topics related to when and where Hoosiers vote. Namely, the secretary is to examine the impact on voter turnout as well as to analyze and estimate any cost savings that may be realized by requiring all counties to set up vote centers on Election Day, rather than having a polling site in every precinct. Morales must also study the impact, including potential cost savings, of moving municipal elections from odd-numbered to even-numbered years, so they would coincide with the midterm and presidential elections.
The law also mandates the secretary of state must hold at least three public meetings, one each in the northern, central and southern regions of Indiana, as part of the investigation into these topics. At the conclusion of the study, the secretary of state is to report the results to the legislative council before Nov. 1.
Following the northern regional meeting held in Muncie on Aug. 22, the central region meeting is scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3, in Conference Room 17 of Harrison Hall at the Indiana Government Center South, 302 W. Washington St., Indianapolis. The third hearing will be held Sept. 19 in Jeffersonville at a location yet to be announced.
In addition to staying fixed on the two topics, the Muncie event dove into the data. Officials from the secretary of state’s office presented the voter turnout numbers and costs related to municipal elections, while the team from the Voting System Technical Oversight Program at Ball State University, also known as VSTOP, walked through its extensive analysis of voting centers.
The data indicated counties could save money, increase voter participation and use fewer poll workers by moving municipal elections and establishing vote centers.
The reaction from the Muncie meeting attendees to both ideas was mixed. A majority overwhelmingly supported vote centers, but some cautioned against cutting staffing levels too much and several asked for the centers to be located near college campuses. Meanwhile, proponents of moving county and city elections said doing so would reduce the counties’ cost and improve voter turnout, but opponents pushed back, saying that the local issues, which are the focus of the municipal elections, would be overshadowed by the attention and news coverage given to the midterm and presidential contests.
Speaking after the meeting, Morales did not support or oppose vote centers and moving municipal elections. Rather, he said each county is different, so he encourages local election administrators to “tailor and customize” their elections to best meet their county’s needs.
“My goal is always to support what the locals want, because at the end of the day, I work for them. I work for the people and I want to support what they want,” Morales said, noting that an election process that works in one county may not work in another. “We have 92 beautiful counties, which I know them very well, but they are all different. So my goal is to encourage them to handle their elections according to the needs of each county.”
The bulk of the two-hour Muncie meeting, held at Ball State, was devoted to reviewing the data.
From the secretary of state’s office, Kegan Prentice, legislative director, and Dustin Renner, election director, presented their findings on municipal elections, while the VSTOP program’s Chad Kinsella, co-director, and Matt Housley, election systems audit specialist, detailed the methodology and results of their study of vote centers. All the presenters emphasized the data is still being analyzed and the final tabulation will be included in the report to the legislative council.
Prentice and Renner said they collected data through a survey of county circuit court clerks and from information that was pulled from the statewide voter registration system.
Overall, they found voter participation increased dramatically in the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential elections compared to the 2023 municipal contest, even while the cost fell. The municipal’s turnout of 603,398 voters was dwarfed by the 1.89 million Hoosiers who voted in the midterm and the 2.98 million who voted for president last year. Conversely, the cost per vote in the municipal election was $15.52, which is 195.06% greater than the $5.26 cost per vote in the midterm election and 183.73% higher than the $5.47 in the presidential election.
Also, Prentice and Renner addressed concerns about ballot fatigue, which causes some voters to skip lower-profile races on long ballots. They said the data showed the increase in voters for the on-cycle elections appeared to offset any potential drop-off in voters.
Kinsella and Housley said they started their analysis of voting centers by looking at election staffing, particularly the poll workers, as well as the equipment used, the locations of the polling places and the voter turnout and experience. This data was pulled from the elections from 2012 through 2024 with the exception of the 2020 presidential contest, which Kinsella said was too distinct.
Reviewing the numbers and statistics available, the Ball State experts found counties using voting centers needed less poll workers than counties using precincts, 19% fewer during presidential elections and 22% fewer in midterm elections. Also, on average, counties using voting centers served 35 more voters per poll worker compared to precinct counties.
Moreover, the cost dropped. Over a 12-year period, the average cost per voter was $5.02 in voting center counties compared with $6.50 in precinct counties. This represents an average savings of roughly $1.48 per voter per year in the counties with voting centers.
However, at this early stage of their analysis, the Ball State team did not find much impact on voter turnout. Even though the data from 2010 through 2024 showed voting center counties consistently had more people casting a ballot on Election Day than precinct counties, the difference did not reach statistical significance.
After the presentations, the floor was opened for public comments. The attendees were instructed to speak only to the two topics and when people brought up other issues, they were cut off. Morales did not offer his view or respond to any questions, but during his remarks at the start of the meeting, he encouraged attendees to share their thoughts.
“We want to include public opinion we receive, so we can add it to our final report for the Legislative Council,” Morales told the audience. “So, whether you are for or against moving when we hold municipal elections, or whether you are in support or in opposition to the use of vote centers in Indiana and in your county, we want to know.”
The crowd attending the Muncie meeting was attentive and appreciative of the data analysis. They did not dispute the findings, but some raised concerns based on their experiences and their own research. Mostly, the attendees were divided over the proposal to move municipal elections to midterm and presidential election years.
Charles Taylor, of Delaware County, urged that municipal elections remain in the off years. He said local elections focus on the candidates and issues that most significantly affect the residents of a town, city or county, but the conversation on community concerns and needs will get lost if the municipal elections are consolidated with the midterm and presidential contests.
“It’ll be more difficult for voters to get the information they need to make a meaningful choice on the local election,” Taylor said, reading from written remarks. “It’ll be more difficult for municipal candidates to communicate their vision for the city. Not only will (the individuals running in the municipal races) be competing with state and federal candidates for attention in the political sphere, they’ll be competing with them for campaign contributions and campaign volunteers as well.”
Linda Hanson, president of the League of Women Voters of Indiana, said if municipal elections are moved, then the option for straight ticket voting should be terminated. At that point, the secretary of state office’s staff member stopped Hanson and said that was not one of the topics up for discussion. Hanson replied, “It’s related.”
Steve and Karin Page had jostled their volunteer work schedules and made the two-hour drive from Dearborn County to attend the Muncie meeting. Prior to the start of the event, they talked about their ideas for improving voter turnout, especially among young adults, as well as keeping waiting times short for voters on Election Day and preventing overreach by the federal government into how states run their elections.
“I think it should be very easy to vote,” Steve Page said before the meeting began.
However, because of the restrictions on public comments, Steve limited his input to voting centers, saying the amount of time voters are having to stand in line should be taken into account.
“I think it’s very important not only do you look at cost per voter but also the amount of time it takes them to actually cast their vote,” Page said, noting Dearborn County opened two additional voting centers and reduced the wait time to under an hour. “I don’t care if it costs a little bit more. I think something like that would be very important for those counties.”
After the meeting, St. Joseph County Circuit Court Clerk Amy Rolfes said the event was productive and informative. In her own community, she said voting centers were serving the voters well, but she could see both the advantages and concerns about moving municipal elections. Mostly, she was impressed by the analysis of the election statistics.
“I had not seen the data,” Rolfes said. “I have certainly done my own research in St. Joseph County on the dollars and voter turnout and all that kind of thing, but I think VSTOP did a very, very good job as did the secretary of state’s office.”
House Enrolled Act 1633 was transformed into a study bill during the 2025 legislative session.
The bill, authored by Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, initially would have moved most municipal elections to even-numbered years, abolished city and town conventions for political party candidates, and scrapped town election boards. By the time it reached the House floor, the original language had been stripped out and replaced with the provisions for the secretary of state to lead a study of election issues.
Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, also introduced legislation moved the elections of town offices to even-numbered years. His measure, Senate Bill 355, squeaked through the upper chamber on a 29-to-20 vote, but stalled it in the House Committee on Elections and Apportionment.
Although Smaltz’s bill picked up bipartisan support in the House, it met strong headwinds in the Senate. Lawmakers, concerned about having the secretary of state conduct the study, rather than assigning the task to a legislative study committee, raised questions asking why Morales was being tapped to lead the election study, how the views of the minority party in the Statehouse would be represented during the study, and whether the legislature would just end up doing its own research once the secretary of state was finished.
“There are some very serious topics that will be studied,” Rep. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, said during the third reading of HEA 1633. “I’m sorry, I just cannot give Secretary Morales any more after (what) he has demonstrated about catering meals, a Hungary trip, an India trip, no-bid contracts, hiring family, bonuses to his staff and a $90,000 car. I just can’t support giving him any more of this.”
Sen. Sue Glick, R-LaGrange, quizzed Gaskill, who sponsored HEA 1633 in the Senate, whether the data being sought on municipal elections and vote centers was not already available from the secretary of state. Also, she noted that assigning a study topic to a statewide elected official was a departure from the normal process and she questioned if lawmakers were delegating their responsibility to examine topics and issues by holding hearings and taking public testimony.
“It seems to me, we’re going to have a dog-and-pony show go all over the state of Indiana, with three regional opportunities for people to get up and talk about this,” Glick said. “And we’re not even sure exactly what we’re asking for because we don’t have the data which is readily available in the secretary of state’s office.”
Asked what he was doing to assure the legislature that his study will be objective and unbiased in its results, Morales said he was focused on compiling a comprehensive report.
“The General Assembly actually were the ones who assigned me to hold these public meetings,” Morales said. “So that’s why we’re staying on topic here, only discussing those two topics, because my goal is to make sure they hear everything here, even the commas and the periods.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
