By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
September 4, 2025
At a public meeting held in Indianapolis on Wednesday to discuss the timing of elections and the locations of polling places, the presentation of the data was much the same as it had been at a similar gathering held in Muncie on Aug. 22, but the reaction of the attendees in the Circle City was decidedly different.
Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales’ office is hosting a series of election study meetings across the state to research and collect public input on the potential of requiring all counties to use voting centers, rather than precincts, and moving municipal elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years. The study was mandated by House Enrolled Act 1633, which the Indiana General Assembly passed during the 2025 legislative session.
Officials from the secretary of state’s office and experts from the Voting System Technical Oversight Program at Ball State University walked through a detailed analysis of the available statistics and information related to voting centers and municipal elections. Overall, they found voting centers use fewer poll workers, serve more voters and cost less than the traditional voting precincts. Also, moving municipal elections would likely increase voter turnout and reduce election costs.
Although many in the small Indianapolis crowd thanked the presenters for collecting the data and explaining their findings, several were skeptical of the analysis, with a few accusing the presenters of bias. Others suggested more aspects to consider as part of the study.
Much of the public’s feedback focused on voting centers but unlike the Muncie meeting where most of that crowd advocated for centrally located polling places over precincts, the Indianapolis group was split between those who opposed and those who supported voting centers. As for moving municipal elections to coincide with midterm and presidential elections, the handful who offered their opinions on the matter were against the idea.
Afterward, Morales said he wanted to see more people attend the meeting and offer their comments. He noted the new law had tasked him with listening to constituents’ feedback on the two topics and then to report the findings of the data analysis and the input from the public to the Indiana General Assembly.
“(We’re) encouraging our fellow Hoosiers to come out to these meetings. We want to incorporate what we hear directly from our fellow Hoosiers,” Morales said. “We want … to hear from them directly, so we can incorporate, obviously, their feedback – for or against – in our final report.”
Under House Enrolled Act 1633, the secretary of state’s office is required to present a report of its findings from the election study to the Indiana General Assembly before Nov. 1, 2025.
The secretary of state’s office is adding more meetings to the study schedule to solicit more reactions from the public. The last in the series was initially to be the Sept. 19 meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Clark County Government Center in Jeffersonville, but two more are now being planned for Lake and Vanderburgh counties.
However, the public is being limited to only commenting on the focus of the study: voting centers and municipal elections.
Attendees at the Indianapolis meeting were given a little leeway to broaden their remarks to related topics, but some in the crowd were still frustrated. One woman, who identified herself as a combat veteran who served in Iraq in 2008, held up a plastic binder thick with papers and struggled to frame her comments to fit the topics being discussed. She wanted to talk about election integrity and oversight for county election boards, but when she was told she could not bring up her concerns about voting machines, she quit.
“Well, all my stuff gets wiped out,” she said of the topics she was hoping to discuss, “so that really sucks.”
Following the meeting, Morales reiterated the provisions in HEA 1633 mandate the meetings stay focused on the two subjects. He said he often participates in community events in small towns and large cities around the state, where he encourages people to share any concerns they have about voting and elections.
“So there is always going to be opportunities for anybody to ask me any questions, whether it’s at the festival, at the fair, or the parade, or things like that, but for today, in these meetings that we’re doing, … we’re speaking about these two issues,” Morales said. “We have a task to report to the General Assembly and I hope the general public will understand.”
The data presented during the Indianapolis meeting indicated state and local governments could realize significant cost savings from using voting centers in elections and switching municipal contests to even-numbered years.
From the secretary of state’s office, Kegan Prentice, legislative director, and Dustin Renner, election director, presented their preliminary conclusions from comparing the 2023 municipal election to the 2022 midterm and the 2024 presidential elections.
They found the overall cost of the 2023 municipal general election at $9.4 million was dwarfed by the $18.8 million and the $16.2 million price tags, respectively, for the midterm and presidential general elections in 2022 and 2024. Yet, when the expense is calculated against the higher turnout rates in the even-numbered years, the cost per vote plunges in the general elections from $15.52 in the 2023 municipal to $5.26 in the 2022 midterm and $5.47 in the 2024 presidential.
Prentice also noted the state savings that would come from moving municipal elections. In particular, the state pays for Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles branches to be open on the Monday before the election and to stay open for extended hours on Election Day. Adding to the expenditures are the costs for the service to help sight-disabled voters, payments to the vendor of the statewide voter registration system to keep the help desk call center open extra hours on Election Day, and to Homeland Security law enforcement for support during the election.
In addition to saving money, Prentice and Renner pointed to data that showed moving municipal elections could also improve voter turnout. A total of 603,398 Hoosiers voted in the 2023 municipal general election, compared to the 1.89 million and 2.89 million who voted in the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential general elections, respectively.
Along with voter turnout, Prentice examined some studies on the representation of the electorate in municipal elections.
“Local elections with few races on the ballot lead to selective participation and produce a voter pool that is disproportionately comprised of those who care more about the issues at stake in those local elections, potentially allowing interest groups (to) have more influence over those elections,” Prentice said.
The VSTOP team of Chad Kinsella, co-director, and Matt Housley, election systems audit specialist, presented their findings so far based on the data from the Indiana counties that have switched to vote centers.
Reviewing the statistics from multiple elections, Kinsella and Housley said the vote center counties needed an average of 19% fewer poll workers but served an average of 35 more voters per poll worker, compared to precinct-based counties. Also, vote center counties saved an average, $2.04 per vote, compared to their precinct counterparts.
Kinsella also pulled Indiana data from voter surveys conducted by MIT over several elections to gauge the voter experience. He found few differences between voting centers and precincts.
“Generally, people like the way elections are done. They skew very, very positive,” Kinsella said. “Overall, not a huge difference in the vote center experience. There were, maybe, shorter lines and, overall, early on, people said that (they) had a little bit less of a wait than those in precinct counties.”
During the public comment period, several people in the audience voiced their opposition to voting centers. Some brought up practical considerations, such as the drive some voters might have to make to get to a voting center and the long lines that can form by having so many people go to a single location to vote, but others were concerned about the use of electronic poll books and the security of the votes. Also, a few contended that voting centers violate the Indiana Constitution, which mentions precincts.
One woman said a return to “precinct-based voting with hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots” would make recruiting poll workers easier and give Hoosiers greater confidence in the election process.
Also, a few in the crowd said the data presented was biased. One woman described the presentation as “a good sales job” but said the data did not show the downside of voting centers and moving municipal elections. Another woman said the bias was baked into the study since, she said, the goal at the outset was to show the cost savings.
Housley defended the analysis, saying they were following the directive from the legislature to determine whether the cost of elections could be reduced by switching to vote centers and changing the timing of local elections.
“The data is the data,” Housley said. “I simply shared with you the analysis of the data that we were asked to look at. … I’m not speaking for or against (anything) today. That’s not my position nor my job. My job was to look at the data and to do the data analysis and that’s what was presented today.”
Jennifer Lewis, from the Vigo County Clerk’s Office, spoke against moving municipal elections. In particular, she said that adding municipal races to a midterm or presidential election could create an exceptionally long ballot and for absentee voters, that could mean they would have to maneuver through pages of candidates. Consequently, if a voter then only returns one page, local officials would not know if that was intentional or whether the voter forgot the other page.
Pauline Spiegel suggested the state switch to voting by mail to reduce the cost of elections.
Morales did not respond to any of the questions or comments the audience made during the meeting. He did take notes while members of the public spoke.
“Our job is just to listen to them,” Morales said after the meeting. “We’re not here to influence. …Our job is just to listen, so then we can provide this report to the General Assembly.
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.
