On Election Day in November 2018, a massive equipment failure left hundreds of Johnson County voters waiting for as many as three hours and others not voting at all.
By 6 p.m., when the polls were set to close, many still had not cast their ballots.
The county election board decided not to ask the court for an emergency injunction to extend voting hours, but a voter hired an attorney and filed an injunction; a local judge denied the voter’s request because it was submitted minutes before the polls were scheduled to close.
Now, nearly two years later, a nonpartisan voting rights group is arguing in a federal lawsuit that an Indiana law violates the U.S. Constitution by blocking voters and candidates from asking courts to keep polling places open past the state’s 6 p.m. closing time because of Election Day troubles.
The law passed by Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature in 2019 prevents anyone other than a county election board, which oversees voting matters, from requesting court orders to extend voting hours.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Indianapolis on behalf of Common Cause Indiana cites equipment troubles, delays in opening polling sites and ballot shortages during the November 2018 elections in Johnson, Porter and Monroe counties. It argues that the state law wrongly thwarts voters and political parties from protecting the right to vote.
In Johnson County, election officials had considered requesting a court order to extend voting by one hour earlier in the day because of the widespread technical glitch, but decided not to once the system was repaired. It is unclear how many voters were unable to wait in such lengthy lines, and unable to return later to cast their ballot.
Voters who were in line at one of 20 vote centers at 6 p.m. Nov. 6, 2018, were allowed to vote, per state law, regardless of the length of the line. Voting ended at the last vote center around 9 p.m.
Election officials scrambled to fix the technical problem that stalled voting mid-day, which was an issue with the county’s vendor, ES and S software, an Omaha, Nebraska-based company that the county has since fired and replaced. Electronic poll books, which are used to check people in before they can move on to a voting machine, kept freezing. Each time that happened, nobody could sign in to vote, which put lines at a standstill and left several voting machines empty. The problem, which affected all 20 of the county’s vote centers, wasn’t corrected until nearly 3 p.m. that day, when the vendor reported the problem had been fixed.
The glitch delayed voting throughout the county. Several tried to get in line after 6 p.m. and refused to leave when they were told they couldn’t vote.
The line at The Nest Event Center in Greenwood was still winding through the building at 6 p.m., with a wait time of up to an hour and a half.
The standard rule is everyone in line within 50 feet of the polling place gets to vote. But at The Nest, everyone inside the building by 6 p.m. is able to vote.
Johnson County Democratic Chairman Kevin Service was at The Nest to observe how the line was handled after the polls closed. He said he had pushed to get an extension earlier that day.
Election official Allen Distler said a few people got in line after 6 p.m. because they were told the deadline was extended to 7 p.m., which Distler said was not true. However, three people who arrived at the polling place just after 6 p.m. were allowed to vote.
Voters were outraged that so many people may had lost their chance to vote. The county’s election board had decided not to offer a paper ballot option, which some voters argued could have served as a backup while the machines were down.
Under state law, the county is not required to provide paper ballots, since Johnson County uses voting machines. No paper ballots were available at vote centers during that election. In order to vote on a paper ballot, voters had to follow the required state process for a mail-in ballot, and that deadline had passed.
Moments before the vote centers were set to close at 6 p.m., a resident who had not been able to vote earlier in the day due to the lines filed an emergency request asking a judge to order vote centers to stay open past 6 p.m. Then-Johnson Circuit Court Judge Mark Loyd denied the request because at that point, vote centers were already closing and the logistics of re-opening vote centers would not have been possible, he said.
“Shutting the courthouse doors to voters and erecting a multi-step process to obtain an extension of polling-place hours to correct irregularities places a severe and unconstitutional burden on all Indiana voters,” the lawsuit filed Wednesday said.
The lawsuit asks that a judge issue an order before this November’s election blocking the state law from being enforced.
The state attorney general’s office didn’t immediately comment on the lawsuit. The law’s author, Republican Sen. Erin Houchin of Salem, said she had not yet seen the lawsuit.
Republican legislators dismissed Democrats’ objections in 2019 to changing the law so only county election boards by unanimous votes could ask judges to extend polling site hours. Most Indiana counties have three-person bipartisan election boards, so a single person from the minority party could block such a request.
The lawsuit also objects to provisions in the law that allow judges to keep polling sites open if they were shut down, and preventing them from considering situations such as malfunctioning equipment, insufficient ballots or long wait times that disrupted voting.
“Indiana is the only state that has tied the voters’ hands in this way,” Julia Vaughn, policy director of Common Cause Indiana, said in a statement. “Our aim is to disrupt what could become a dangerous trend across the country.”
