JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — When people in Clark County, Indiana went to bed Tuesday night, only 2% of the vote was in for the local races.
"This all should have been done last night; I sat there with a bunch of people, and they didn't know what the hell was going on," Thomas Galligan said, chair of the Clark County Democrats.
All the way until 7 a.m., the total tally for House District 71 between Democrat Wendy Dant Chesser and Republican Scott Hawkins was showing less than 500 total votes counted. The results were finally ran at 7:12 a.m., and WHAS11 was notified at 9:25 a.m.
"We had over 22,500 early and absentee ballots to count," Republican Clark County Clerk Ryan Lynch said in a statement. "The issue that we had was a grouping issue of ballots with their specific precincts. Leading up to election day during the end of day audit process some ballots were grouped with precincts that they are not from. This can create a headache on election day because of the steps we use to insure our election integrity can prolong the process."
According to Galligan and former Clark County Democrats Chair Bob Bottorf, the process for counting votes used to be to house all the early and absentee ballots at a central location, but then take them to the polls on Election Day to be counted at individual precincts. In both the 2023 city elections and the 2024 election on Tuesday, the early and absentee ballots were left in a central location to be counted.
Before the counting could begin, they realized the ballots were not organized by precinct.
"Be a candidate, spend all your time running, and then have to put up with that," Galligan said. "That's a little bit much. And Wendy, she went home thinking she lost, and she comes up and ends up winning."
Galligan said they had access to all of the Election Day, in-person voting, which showed Scott Hawkins defeated Dant Chesser by about 500 votes. When all the 22,500 absentee and early ballots had been counted, Dant Chesser won by less than 1,000 votes.
Dant Chesser won (according to unofficial results) with 49.7% (13,047 votes) and Hawkins got 46.39% (12,163 votes). Dant Chesser targeted Hawkins repeatedly in her campaign for receiving campaign donations from Jamey Noel in 2022 and not returning the money when Noel pleaded guilty to tax fraud, theft and other charges in 2024.
"This issue we had created extra steps for us in the auditing process but did not impact the integrity of our count," Lynch said in a statement.
Lynch left the office around noon on Wednesday and was not available for an interview. He said he and his staff worked through the night.
"I spoke with the county clerk a year ago with my frustrations after the 2023 elections; I'll be letting him know my disappointment again this year," Mayor Mike Moore said, R-Jeffersonville.
Moore noted the city election results in 2023 had similar issues. Hawkins also lost the 2022 Dist. 71 race after thinking he had won on election day. Then Clerk Susan Popp said 1,700 ballots were not correctly transferred from voting machines to the tabulation software in that race.
Lynch said they will review the full Election Day and counting process to determine if any changes need to be made after this year.
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