By Taylor Wooten 
TheStatehouseFile.com 

INDIANAPOLIS—Hoosiers who encounter issues at their polling places that keep them casting a ballot on Election Day will not be able to petition the courts to extend voting hours, a three-member panel of the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The decision, issued late Friday, overturned an injunction issued in September saying it would cause irreparable harm as a last-minute change to Indiana’s election laws.

Attorney General Curtis Hill celebrated the decision upholding a 2019 Indiana law that says only the county’s election board can petition the courts to extend voting hours. Hill has been an advocate for upholding Indiana’s election laws in several cases involving voting in the general election.

“Fortunately, we are seeing federal appeals courts nationwide recognizing states’ legitimate authority to enact and enforce reasonable election laws,” Hill said in a press release. “Taken as a whole, election regulations must exist for elections to be fair, meaningful, and legitimate.”

Common Cause Indiana fought to obtain the preliminary injunction, and Director Julia Vaughn said the group is disappointed that the appellate court overturned U.S. District Judge Richard Young’s decision.

“We felt that Judge Young’s ruling was an important reinstatement of citizens’ rights to go to court to preserve their voting rights when they are threatened by long lines, equipment malfunctions, you know any of the problems that can happen on Election Day,” Vaughn said.

Another issue that Common Cause Indiana has been trying to address is the contradictory information being shared with poll workers and voters over what to do if a voter has requested an absentee ballot but decides to vote in-person.

In a letter to the Indiana Election Commission, Vaughn explained that state election code says that a voter who has not returned their absentee ballot may vote in person. However, the Election Division’s communication with election officials and communications with voters in Delaware County contradict the state law, Vaughn said.

She said she has received reports from voters in Lake and Monroe counties who had shown up to vote in person after requesting an absentee ballot were turned away.

“We think the statute is clear” Vaughn said. “It allows people to change their mind and simply tell the poll place workers at early voting that they’ve changed their mind, that they want to vote early.”

The Indiana secretary of state’s office said that Hoosiers cannot use the excuse that they have changed their mind to vote early in-person.

“State law does not allow a voter who received an absentee-by-mail ballot to vote absentee in-person because they changed their mind,” said Valerie Warycha, communications director for Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson. “The absentee ballot must be lost, spoiled or defective and the ABS-5 form executed before an absentee ballot can be reissued.”

However, on Election Day voters may surrender their absentee ballot and vote in person, Warycha said.

Lines at the polls are appearing to be an issue as well, especially in Marion County. The wait times skyrocketed over the weekend. At St. Luke’s United Methodist Church on West 86^th Street, the wait was as long as eight hours, according to Indy Vote Times.

Vaughn said that Common Cause Indiana worked with a number of different organizations, including Vote Safe Indiana, to create Indy Vote Times as a tool for busy voters in Marion County.

“I think the problem is that we have had for a long time in Indiana had very low voter turnout, so that is what election administrators have grown accustomed to planning for,” Vaughn said. “And this year we’re not seeing that, and so clearly they should’ve planned for a larger turnout, bigger crowds.”

There are five satellite locations for early voting in Marion County, in addition to the clerk’s office at the City-County Building.

As of Monday, one million ballots have been received, according to the Secretary of State’s office. Nearly 563,000 have been by mail and 672,000 are early in-person voting. In the 2016 election, 2.8 million Hoosiers voted with 934,000 of those votes being absentee.

FOOTNOTE: Taylor Wooten is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.