JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. – A technical malfunction in voting equipment and a disputed timestamp on official records have fractured the Clark County Election Board. The conflict has escalated into a partisan standoff, sending two closely contested races to the Indiana Recount Commission.
The three-member board convened Tuesday evening in the basement of the Clark County Courthouse to address discrepancies in ballot counts for precincts 13, 23, 24, and 26. Although the posted agenda suggested a simple verification of ballot totals to ensure they matched vote counts, the officials struggled to define their legal authority. The meeting ended without a unified resolution, with the two Republican members passing resolutions stating that concerns had been adequately investigated. Andrew Steele, the board’s sole Democratic member, initially resisted signing the paperwork, anticipating a formal recount process that would incur significant costs for the county.
Close margins and legal challenges
Following the board’s meeting, the Clark County Democratic Party filed a recount petition and an election contest on Thursday afternoon. The challenge covers the state Senate District 45 race and the local auditor position. In the Senate contest, Republican President-elect Chris Garten holds a narrow lead of 297 votes over Democrat Nick Marshall. Similarly, Republican incumbent R. Monty Snelling leads Democrat Antonio Veals by just 257 votes for the auditor seat.
Miguel Hampton, chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, stated that voters deserve transparency regarding how the irregularities were handled. He emphasized that counting ballots in the open is the best way to demonstrate election integrity and ensure that every vote is properly recorded.
Technical failures at polling sites
The core of the dispute stems from a paper jam in a voting machine at the Jeffersonville High School polling site around 11 a.m. on Election Day. Election officials replaced the top section of the machine and transferred the data stick, leaving the bottom section, where paper ballots are collected, untouched. However, the printed record of vote totals from these precincts bears a timestamp of 11:08 a.m. Democrats are questioning whether ballots scanned between 6 a.m. and 11:08 a.m. were fully included in the final tally.
Complicating the situation, a glitch in the electronic pollbooks prevented poll workers from completing the digital check-in process at several precincts. Circuit Court Clerk Ryan Lynch noted that while voter information was visible, the system would not register the check-in. He followed the manufacturer’s guidance to re-upload the voter list, which resolved the issue. As a temporary workaround, voters in the affected areas signed a paper pad instead of using the digital screen.
The four precincts at Jeffersonville High School were impacted by this pollbook malfunction. The digital records show 1,612 voters checked in, while the voting machines recorded 1,640 ballots cast, a difference of 28 votes. Attorneys Jim Bopp and Ted Nolting, representing Garten, argued that this discrepancy is consistent with the period during which the pollbooks were inoperable. They maintained that the number of people who voted matches the total votes cast, suggesting no ballots were left uncounted. Bopp described the push for a manual count as an "ad hoc recount" and contended that the Election Board lacked the legal authority to perform such a task.