Now that the town conventions are over for Claypool, Pierceton and Sidney, the Kosciusko County Election Board made several decisions Monday for the Nov. 7 elections, including early voting times and vote center locations.
After the board approved a resolution, early voting will take place in Mentone at the fire station, 201 W. Main St., only on Saturdays, Oct. 28 and Nov. 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Early voting at the Kosciusko County Justice Building, 121 N. Lake St., Warsaw, was set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 28, Oct. 30 through Nov. 3 and Nov. 4; and 8 a.m. to noon Nov. 6.
On election day, vote centers will be hosted in each of the four towns having elections. Sidney voters will cast their ballots at Amazing Grace Community Church, Mentone at the fire station, Claypool in the Lions Building and Etna Green at Heritage Park. Any registered voter can vote at any of the vote center locations.
The board also had to approve a resolution to state what towns will not be conducting an election in the fall due to a lack of contested races.
The cities and towns within Kosciusko County that will not have a 2023 municipal election on Nov. 7 include Warsaw, Winona Lake, Syracuse, Leesburg, North Webster, Silver Lake and Pierceton.
Asked about the lack of opposition in this year’s municipal elections and how historic it is, County Clerk Ann Torpy said Warsaw has had a city election every year since 1975 except for this year. Torpy said her first city election working in the clerk’s office was 1995 and she’s not seen a year before this year where Warsaw and many of the towns in the county haven’t had elections.
“It’s strange. It’s nice, as far as an elections administrator point of view, but it is kind of unusual, I feel,” Torpy said.
Election Board member and Democrat Bill Morton attributed the cause to it being difficult to find candidates “that are willing to run because the county is so heavily Republican.”
For Warsaw, there were no contested races in the Republican primary for city council, mayor or clerk-treasurer. And then no members of any other political party filed to run for city office after the primary. Torpy guessed that maybe people were willing to wait and see how well Jeff Grose does as mayor, but she really didn’t know why there were no contested races. Grose ran unopposed for mayor as incumbent Joe Thallemer announced he was not going to seek re-election.
Asked if she had an estimate on how much money will be saved because there’s no election in Warsaw, Torpy said she did not.
“No, because the same effort goes into it, we just won’t have the pollworkers, that’s about the only difference. Everything that we put into an election - it doesn’t matter what size it is - is the same cost. We have to pay the same amount for ballots. Machine programming will be cheaper because we are only programming 12-14 machines, that would be different compared to maybe the 50 we would have, or the 20 we would have - I’m not sure how many we would send from Warsaw - but, really, that’s the only cost savings - pollworkers and machine programming. The rest of it, all of it is the same amount. We pay the same for getting the election off the ground,” Torpy explained.
The contested races in November will be Claypool: Republican Miranda Stage and Libertarian Patricia Warner for clerk-treasurer; Sidney: Democrats Brandon Allen, Gavin Parrett and Rebecca Adams and Republican Sharon Rancourt for the three council seats; Mentone: Democrats Tim Croy and Hannah Beliles and Republicans Shelly Krueger and Jill Gross for the three council seats; and Etna Green: Republicans Keith A. Claassen, Jason W. Hanes and Heath Roberts and Libertarian Susan Klinefelter for the three council seats.
As there are no Democrats, Libertarians or other political party members that filed for the Pierceton council seats and clerk-treasurer position, the winners of the Republican town convention Thursday will serve the town beginning Jan. 1. Elected were incumbent Myra Mast as clerk-treasurer and Eric Trump, Glenn Hall and incumbent Matt Brubaker to the town board.
The town of Burket had no one file for the election so the current officeholders will carry over for the next four-year term.
Kosciusko County Election Board member and Republican Randy Girod pointed out at the end of Monday’s meeting that the public testing of the voting equipment will be at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 2 in the Justice Building meeting room.
Election information can be found on the county’s website at kcgov.com.