Early in-person voting for the upcoming presidential election got off to a historic start this week, with nearly 1,000 voters casting ballots on Tuesday alone.
A record-breaking 972 voters cast their ballots at Donner Center on Tuesday, marking the highest turnout ever for the first day of early in-person voting, surpassing the combined totals of Johnson and Jackson counties, according to records from officials in all three counties.
By comparison, 646 voters turned out in Johnson County on Tuesday, while Jackson County saw 291 voters, for a combined total of 931 ballots cast — even though those two counties have a combined 2.5 times the population of Bartholomew County.
The previous record for turnout in Bartholomew County on the first day of early in-person voting was 728 during the 2020 presidential election. In 2016, just 264 people in the county cast ballots on the first day.
Overall, a record 2,373 people in Bartholomew County cast ballots during the first three days of early in-person voting, compared to 2,220 at the same point in 2020 and 845 in 2016.
Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz said many voters have been “anxious” to cast their ballots, with an unusually high number of people dropping by the poll worker training held Monday actually wanting to vote.
On Monday, around a dozen people stopped by Donner Center while county election officials were training poll workers before early in-person voting started Tuesday — a number that local election officials said was unprecedented.
“I think just with each passing election, people realize (voting early in-person) is an option, and there’s just a lot of excitement locally and on a national level around this election,” Lentz said. “I think there were a lot of people that were anxious to cast their vote on the first day.”
“We’ve never seen quite that many people stop by on Monday prior to voting starting on Tuesday,” Lentz added. “We did have some anxious voters.”
The record-breaking turnout on Tuesday prompted local election officials to add two additional poll workers at Donner Center on Wednesday, Lentz said. Officials plan to add an additional two voting machines — for a total of 12 — at Donner Center starting next week. Initially, officials planned to use eight machines.
“On Tuesday, it was just nonstop, and our poll workers didn’t have a moment to sit down at all or have anything to eat,” Lentz said. “So, I tried to make sure we had plenty of help the next day.”
Lentz said she suspects rush to vote on the first day of early in-person voting is likely a combination of interest in presidential race between Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, as well as the Bartholomew Consolidated School Board races.
Local party leaders said they believe that a high level of interest in the presidential race is likely, though local contests such as the BCSC school board races may also be driving people to go out and vote early.
“I think it’s a combination of things and just general excitement that this race has,” said Bartholomew County Democratic Party Chair Ross Thomas. “People have been following politics all year, maybe two years. And when the gates finally opened, I think people were eager to rush in.”
“I think if you take the combination of just traditionally more people vote in a presidential year, and what I think is pretty obvious that there’s a lot of interest and excitement about this (presidential) race, certainly on our side,” Thomas added.
Bartholomew County Republican Party Chair Luanne Welmer said she thinks the rush to vote early may be related to voters being “passionate about the presidential race,” though the school board and county council races also are drawing interest.
“I think that they just want to make sure that they get their vote counted,” Welmer said. “They don’t want, perhaps, to forget to vote or they might be traveling on (Election Day), but they are truly just passionate about the presidential race.
“From all of the phone calls that I’ve had at headquarters and all of the signs that have been requested, yes, (Trump) is the leading person to vote for,” Welmer added.
It’s anyone’s guess as to how early voting will evolve, though generally the number of people turning out each day tends to increase as Election Day approaches, election officials said.
So far, a total of 3,383 Bartholomew County voters have already cast their ballots early in-person or absentee by mail, or roughly 6.3% of registered voters.
“I just can’t thank our poll workers enough for the hard work that they’re doing,” Lentz said. “We’re just seeing a good, steady stream there at Donner, with not much of a wait for those coming in. We just want to encourage everyone to cast their ballot early if it’s convenient for them.”
