Marion County Election Board Meeting - April 7, 2026
Marion County Election Board Meeting - April 7, 2026
The Marion County Election Board met on April 7, 2026, to conduct a public test of voting equipment, approve minutes, consider campaign finance fine waivers, and approve contracts for the upcoming primary and general elections. The meeting included board members, staff, and public testimony.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes from January 30 and February 4, 2026, were approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Several individuals appeared to request waivers of campaign finance fines for late or incorrect filing of 2025 annual reports.
- Pamela Anderson requested a waiver due to inadvertent use of an outdated form; granted.
- Deborah Blewett requested a waiver due to treasurer error; granted.
- Robin Stewart argued that the board lacked jurisdiction because he had not raised or spent $100, but the board noted that the exemption requires the office to pay less than $5,000, and his office (Marion County Clerk) pays more than $5,000, so he must file; no waiver requested.
- Gerald Coleman requested a waiver due to bank account access issues; granted.
- Peter Wolski requested a waiver citing oversight; granted.
- Robert Perrin requested a waiver as treasurer for Williams Creek; granted.
- Tyrell Giles requested a waiver due to miscommunication; granted.
- Christina Smith requested a waiver for the Indianapolis Education Justice Coalition PAC due to disbandment oversight; granted.
- The board discussed a policy change to allow written submissions instead of in-person appearance for future waiver requests and to revise certified mail fees. The remaining fines were tabled pending policy revision.
Discussion Items
- Public test of voting equipment: Director Becker explained the process of testing a percentage of machines as required by law, using pre-marked test ballots. The test was expected to take about two hours.
- Updates from the Clerk: Early voting begins April 7, 2026; voter registration closes April 6 at 11:59 p.m.; mail-in ballot applications are due by April 23; poll workers are still needed.
Key Outcomes
- Approved minutes of January 30 and February 4, 2026.
- Granted fee waivers for Pamela Anderson, Deborah Blewett, Gerald Coleman, Peter Wolski, Robert Perrin, Tyrell Giles, and Christina Smith.
- Tabled remaining campaign finance fines pending policy revision. Staff will send letters to other filers about a second opportunity to appear or submit written statements.
- Approved contracts:
- Elect Staffing for voting machine logistics ($225,000 not to exceed) and for election day mechanics (amount not specified, approved).
- Z Trip for taxi services for traveling board ($80,000 not to exceed).
- Rental agreements for early voting sites: Decatur Township ($0), Franklin Township ($0), Fort Ben Library ($0), Perry Township ($1,200), Pike Library ($0), Warren Township ($12,000), St. Luke's UMC ($0), Cranert Park ($10,500). All approved.
Note: The transcript indicates the meeting occurred on April 3, 2026, but the scheduled date per the instruction is April 7, 2026.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good morning everyone. We'll get the start the Marion County Election Board College of Order. Here it's April 3rd, 9 02 a.m. As we get started, we'll have everyone do introductions. We'll start with the board, staff, and then council. Starting with myself, Nolita Stewart, Chair. Good morning, Jennifer Ping, Vice Chair. Kate Sweeney Bell, Secretary. Patrick Becker, Director of Elections. Brad Boswell, outside counsel. Adam Wicker Corporation Council. All right. Thank you, everyone. Today, big day. We're doing our public tests. We have the team getting started here. So I think we just allow these guys to kick off with a public test of the voting equipment. And then we'll finish the meeting after they get started and sort of wrap up at the end. We're good to let them go. Yeah. I'm happy to explain any that's happening. I guess we're gonna bring that to the minute first. Yes. Oh my goodness. This one is admirably. It's good to see the old crew. I would try to some carrots. I need some intro music. You know how to make it happen. Do you want to explain? I can't. We need time to say that. I know, maybe. Director Becker, would you want to share with everyone sort of what's happening and what we're doing currently? Sure. So the last few weeks, this uh crew has been working um and testing machines, um, the entire fleet of machines that we'll be using for this election. And uh what's required by law is that the state provides us a list of percentage of those machines that we need to test in a public meeting. So these machines have actually already been tested. Um but what's gonna happen now is um the staff will go through there are pre-marked test ballots that have um ballots marked for each race, and we have we know what uh how many votes are on each of those. Um and so then what we'll do is we'll actually tabulate those ballots and we'll have a report that shows uh what our predictive results are and what the actual results are after the test. Um and the idea being that they'll match. So um essentially everybody that's in the first position on the ballot, they get one vote. Everybody that's in the second position, they get two votes, and so that's how we predict um you know how many votes each candidate will get. We know how many uh ballots we're counting, so uh we should know what the results should be. Um at the conclusion of this, the board will sign a certification that will uh take to the state um certifying that the public test has uh was you know properly noticed and that it was uh completed with no issues and uh that will kind of conclude the official part of the public test. Um and then these machines will be ready uh to deploy uh starting as early as Tuesday for uh early voting downtown and then um all the way up until election day. And the test takes a couple hours. Yeah, it will take it probably about two hours. Okay, all right, thank you. So I'll wait for your okay to start from day 50.
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