Oath of ballot counter bill dies after House committee hearing
Sen. Dan Dernulc, R-Highland, authored Senate Bill 186, which would require the circuit court clerk to give a copy of each oath counter on provisional ballots to the election division no later than 30 days after the election.
Chairman of the House Elections and Apportionment committee Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, offered an amendment to the bill to remove the requirement for the circuit court clerk to transmit a copy of each oath taken by a ballot counter for the 2024 election.
The amendment was adopted unanimously during a March House Elections and Apportionment committee meeting. The bill was held during the March 26 committee meeting and was not heard in committee after that.
Dernulc said the bill died after officials determined it created 'duplicative work.'
'I was disappointed it didn't get a vote,' Dernulc said. 'All I wanted to do was to make it transparent. I wasn't able to convince (Wesco), so I'll do more work next year.'
In drafting the bill, Dernulc previously said he worked with Secretary of State Diego Morales and Brad King, co-director of the Indiana Election Division. Dernulc previously testified that he authored the bill after residents came to him to talk about more transparency in the election process.
'They would like to see a little more transparency, that's all,' Dernulc previously said. 'There's nothing that anybody's doing that's adversarial or bad, just a little more transparency into it.'
Indiana Election Division Democratic co-general counsel Matthew Kochevar testified in committee that he opposed the bill because people can file a FOIA request to see provisional ballot signatures at their local election office, which is easier than traveling to Indianapolis to see the signatures.
When the bill was heard in the House committee, Brad King, Republican co-director of the Indiana Election Division, said the bill was drafted because of a records request filed in the Lake County Board of Elections and Registration office.
The Lake County election office 'experienced, from the perspective of the Republican assistant director at that time, difficulty in responding to public records requests for oaths of the provisional ballot counters,' King said.
'The bill before you comes from the actual experience that the individual had in providing those records upon request,' King said. 'It's not unprecedented. It mirrors a provision in current law.'
Lake County Board of Elections and Registration Director Michelle Fajman sent a letter April 1 to legislators to inform them that she opposed the bill and that Lake County never received the FOIA in question.
Fajman wrote that she spoke with LeAnn Angerman, the former assistant director, who told her that she did not recall receiving a FOIA request for provisional ballots.
Further, Fajman said in the letter that her office staff checked FOIA records between November 2024 to February 2025, since the bill referenced the 2024 general election, and no provisional ballot FOIA requests were filed.
'A bill should never be introduced based on one complaint and never by one that has not been substantiated,' Fajman wrote.
If the argument for the bill was that a county had difficulty responding to a FOIA request, having staff copying the ballots and filing them with the state Election Division wouldn't make the process easier, Fajman wrote.
As a test run, Fajman wrote that she asked her staff to copy all the provisional ballots from the 2024 general election. It took her staff an hour and a half to do so, Fajman wrote.
Fajman said her office retains all election documents for 22 months, and it wouldn't be difficult to respond to a FOIA request to see the provisional ballots. The ballots are kept under lock and key in a room with video surveillance, Fajman wrote, and all provisional ballots are signed by full-time staff.
'Lake County does an excellent job in conducting elections. I am offended that Lake County's name is being tarnished by this bill,' Fajman wrote.
Fajman told the Post-Tribune Thursday she was glad the bill didn't make it out of the House committee.
'There is no broken part to this. It didn't need fixing,' Fajman said. 'It's a redundant process, and it's not needed.'
akukulka@post-trib.com
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