County Clerk Bennitt responds to GIANT fm WTTA questions on voting

Marshall County Clerk, Jenny Bennitt told GIANT fm WTCA that for the November 5^th Presidential Election the County Election Board will have to consider 24 provisional ballots. Some of those issues can be: signatures don’t match on mail-in ballots, photo IDs are expired, and voters contend they are registered but on election day the vote center doesn’t show them. 

Last week’s election had 76 write-in votes for President, 3 for U.S. Senator and 5 for Governor.  When asked who the right-ins were, Clerk Bennitt told GIANT fm the right-ins for President were 15 votes for Peter Sonski and Lauren Onak, 1 vote for Tom Hoefling and Andy Prior, and 3 votes for Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia.    In Indiana only declared write-in candidates are counted and there were 20 legal write-in candidates that could be voted for. Those voters who write in non-certified candidates such as Mickey Mouse are not counted.   

On Election Day, County Councilwoman Nicole Cox posted on Facebook that two people contacted her that day saying they voted a straight R ticket but when they looked at the printout it said Harris.  She posed a warning on her Facebook page to Election Day voters urging voters to triple check before they finalize their vote. 

Giant fm WTCA asked Clerk Bennitt if the County Election Board was aware of any such issues. Bennitt said, “No one came forward and reported this issue to our poll workers that I am aware of, so I have no way to verify that it actually happened.  I would like to stress that all of our equipment is certified by the State and a public test is conducted with a representative from MicroVote and our Election Board to ensure all aspects of the machines are working properly, including the straight ticket buttons.  We had 6,290 Republican straight tickets and 1,438 Democratic straight tickets.  Trump/Vance received 13,829 votes and Harris/Walz received 5,354 votes.”

County Clerk Bennitt said MicroVote has been running elections in Indiana since they were founded in Indianapolis 40 years ago.  They are the longest standing voting system manufacturer in the country.  There are 56 counties in Indiana that use MicroVote systems with tens of thousands of straight party ballots cast on their machines this election, with no other voters making this same unsubstantiated claim.  Bennitt said, “The Election Board and my staff that are involved with every aspect of the election process at Marshall County fully trust MicroVote has provided us with the best equipment available, and we are confident in the performance of our voting systems.”

WTCA was also told that someone had stood in line for about two hours to vote absentee and when they got close to the door they were turned away because they had a political t-shirt on.  The County Clerk told us, “We had a handful of voters come into the Courthouse with political apparel on.  They are screened upon entrance to the Courthouse by security, before they are actually waiting in line.  Those with hats were asked to leave them with security until they were done voting.  Those with shirts were asked to go to the restroom and turn their shirts inside out.  No one was told they could not vote.” 

The Marshall County Election Board will meet this Friday, November 15^th at 1 p.m. in the Clerk’s Office to review the election and certify the vote.