Reader: Ballard will create unified system for election worker training

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Dear Editor:

Especially in smaller, more rural counties, county clerks must sometimes train each other on how to run their first election, even having to travel to other counties, and in one case pay another county’s employees out of pocket.

Indiana’s Election Division’s training sessions focus on changes in the law since the last session, but they do not provide standardized, hands-on training on how to run our elections – despite authorization for poll worker and county election official training since 1995. It has never been funded.

Procedural errors by county officials in the Senate District 23 recount were ultimately decided by the Indiana Supreme Court four months later.

Independent Secretary of State candidate Greg Ballard will overhaul how Indiana trains the people who run our elections:

• A Clerk Training Boot Camp providing hands-on state training in a practice version of the statewide voter registration system, built and taught by sitting and retired clerks, complementing (not replacing) the state’s legal-update sessions.
• Funding the 2005 poll worker and county election official training law with a standardized curriculum, train-the-trainer for clerks, and regional field staff directly supporting our counties.
• One standard for all 92 counties, so every vote is handled the same way regardless of where it’s cast, whether in your county or mine.

When I validated mail-in ballots after an election a few cycles ago, such training and funding were nowhere in evidence. They should have been.

Indiana must run elections lawfully and correctly the first time – wherever they are held.

Richard H. Nelson
Indianapolis