Early voting has begun for Indiana's May 7 primary election

Early voting is underway for the May 7 primary election.

The deadline has passed to register for early voting because all voter registrations must be submitted no later than 29 days before the election in which you plan to vote.

“Absentee voting is voting outside of Election Day to any voting that takes place before Election Day,” said Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County clerk. “And that could be voting by mail if you qualify or in-person early voting, or it could be voting by what we call a traveling board, and that is for those who are confined to their home or residence or are caring for someone who is confined. So a bipartisan team is dispatched to the location and assists a voter who is not able to leave their residence.”

There are a number of circumstances that allow someone to vote by mail, but anyone can visit their nearest voting location, which you can look for on the Indiana government website, to vote early.

“Voter turnout for the last three days of last week in Marion County has not been very high,” Sweeney said. “If somebody wants to come in to vote, there’s no wait.

“We require that they bring a government-issued ID. … They could bring their passport, they could bring a military ID, or if somebody goes to a state school, they could bring their state school ID. …. A private school doesn’t count.”

According to Indiana Civic Health, “It should be noted that Indiana consistently placed in the bottom 10 of all states on midterm voter turnout since 2010.”

Alexander Nyirendah, a board member and co-director of the Marion County Board of Voters Registration, named three reasons why it’s important to vote.

Representation

“Because what elections do is they allow citizens to choose who will voice their concerns at a higher level,” he said. “And those concerns turn into public policy, so legislation. Just even day-to-day things: When you look at who is on your school board, voting for who’s on your school board, that impacts the way teachers are paid, that impacts just the way the school moves forward, and that directly is associated with your children.”

Accountability

“Being an elected official is a very unique job in the manner that whether you’re on the ballot every two years or on the ballot every four years, you find yourself having to reapply for the job oftentimes. So getting out and voting holds those elected officials accountable,” he said. “Because if elected officials are not serving the community and not representing their community, voters have the ability to choose someone that they feel most represents the same that they want and the policies that they feel that need to be needed. It also encourages public participation.”

Choice

“When you think about yourself at work, you really don’t get to choose who your boss is,” he said. “You don’t get to choose who represents you or speaks for you outside of yourself, but participating in elections really does provide individuals that very unique opportunity to do such and choose who represents them and who leads their community.”

Sweeney Bell and some of the staff members of the Marion County Election Board recently went into a local high school to recruit students to work the election and help them sign up to register to vote.

“I will tell you no truer words have been spoken, ‘Voting is cool.’ That’s what we’re trying to impart on these young minds,” Sweeney Bell said. “And one of the things that I told the students was, it doesn’t matter if someone is a CEO or working washing dishes, their vote equals exactly the same weight.”