Election Errors In Hendricks County

*Cue Music Man* We have trouble…right here in Hendricks County.

Indiana’s 25th state house district includes Hendricks and Boone counties. The 2024 election seemed to run smoothly in Boone County, but the same cannot be said for Hendricks. At an election board hearing on November 15th, Republican incumbent Becky Cash was declared the winner of the race to represent Indiana’s 25th but only 64 votes separated Cash from her Democratic challenger, Tiffany Stoner.

Cash’s victory was not the only news shared at this meeting. Major issues with the voting process in Hendricks County were also revealed that call into question the results of the Cash/Stoner race and the results of other races in Hendricks County. Let’s highlight the three most troubling:

First, there were absentee ballots mailed out without the required initials from a clerk of each party. Voters whose completed ballots that were received missing those initials were discarded due to no fault of the voter and voters were not notified that their ballot wouldn’t be counted. No one knows how many ballots were discarded due to this clerks error.

Secondly, signatures proved to be a sticky issue as subjectivity and communication gaps led some ballots to be discarded. For some voters who had updated their registrations at the BMV and recorded an updated signature, Hendricks County never received the new signature and when the signature on their 2024 ballot was found not to match the signature on their registration, their ballot wasn’t counted. Some of those affected were notified via mail with only a few days to correct their signatures in person. One of the most egregious examples of this is a military member, serving overseas, mailed in their absentee ballot and because their signatures didn’t match, their ballot was pitched and the voter was never notified. It is almost unheard of that a military ballot would be deemed invalid.

Regarding signatures, for us older folks, we have had a solid repeatable signature for many years, but just think how differently your signature looks today versus when you were 18. Think of how differently your signature looks when you sign electronically versus when you sign on paper. If you’ve ever had to change your name, your signature has also changed, or as our hands get older and less pliable, our signatures also vary. The subjectivity of one election official determining your ballot is invalid because your signatures aren’t a match is a major problem of voter suppression.

Finally, and most startling; Hendricks County made the decision to not have any inspectors present at any of the early voting locations. This. Is. Huge. Inspectors are CRITICAL to the administration of an election. Inspectors are the ones who open voting, turn on machines, resolve issues, and close the polling place. Regarding this deliberate decision to not have inspectors present, Hendricks County said they were trying “something new” this election.

None of these examples indicate deliberate fraud and none of these examples are the fault of the voter, but they cannot and should not be ignored.

Each county is its own election authority and in Indiana we have 92 counties and 92 separate elections. A signature that is discarded in Hendricks may have been counted in Porter, voters in Lake received valid absentee ballots, while some voters in Hendricks did not. The subjectivity and variability in the elections administered around the state makes it crucial that we the people pay attention when issues are brought to light and demand these issues be corrected.

Every single vote matters and every single voter should have the confidence their voice will heard every single election.

If the results of the election in Hendricks County will be contested, that decision must be made by this Friday, November 22. Attorneys are involved and Hendricks County Democrats and the Indiana Democratic Party are weighing their options.