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SYRACUSE - No special election will be held for the Wawasee School Board, despite confusion on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The earliest date the Wawasee School Board has to make changes to its policy is Oct. 13, 1999. Procedure was followed according to the policy currently in place, so there will be no special election.
What was a primary issue to some patrons at Tuesday night's 2-1/2 meeting, but almost a postscript to routine business, arose after the Nov. 5 election.
Tallies showed that some Wawasee voters are still having a hard time understanding directions on the ballot for at-large school board elections. Numbers from the clerk's office indicated more than 3,000 votes were incorrect. This appeared to mean at least 30 percent of the voters did not vote correctly. That number was adjusted by school attorney David Cates to no more than 16.6 percent. But even that figure still raises the question: "Is the procedure faulty or does the electorate need more education on how to vote?"
Similar confusion four years ago resulted in a special election, followed by a committee to fix the problem. And just as that committee was split on the remedy, patrons are split into those who want a new procedure and those who think the system works fine.
As the meeting was drawing to a close, patron Susie Butler said, "I think we need to do something about the way we do our election." Board member John Weiss agreed: "I don't think I lost because of the way the ballot is set up, but the ballot is wrong. This isn't a true at-large election. People are guarding turf."
Another board member, Mike Kern, concurred.
"We will never solve our election problems until people stop guarding their turf," Kern said.
At-large elections are held to elect two board members, but these two cannot be from the same district. Wawasee is divided into three residential districts centered around the three towns that compose the school corporation: Milford, North Webster and Syracuse. The current plan prevents any one of these towns from holding a majority on the board. And it is this fear, some said, that makes the ballot and voting procedure so confusing.
Interim superintendent Mark Stock explained that the Nov. 5 election was valid because the ballot was correct, and election procedure was followed. He said he read minutes from the 1993 committee meetings, all the way to the recommendations presented to the board. But in October 1993, the committee itself was split down the middle. Two plans were presented to the board: one to drop the district designations on the ballot and elect the two top vote-getters from different districts, and the plan that was adopted which kept the candidates divided by districts.
Some patrons prefer the way things stand. Jerry Riffle said that he and his wife have no problem with election instructions and, that at some precincts, workers made sure beforehand that voters understood procedures.
North Webster resident Tom Reiff told the board, "I have no problem reading a ballot. A very low number of people misvoted." He added that cries for special elections cause animosity among people of the corporation.
State law stipulates that a school corporation cannot amend its policy more than every six years, and since it came up in 1993, the change has to wait until 1999, right before the next at-large election.
Until that time, one issue to be considered is whether or not to amend policy regarding residency districts. Cates said that changes must be approved by the Department of Education. Also, residents will have the opportunity to present their own plans. "Chances are," he said, "that we could hold a special election to vote on how to have our election."
