Election results delayed by hours in Saint Joe County

 

SAINT JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. --- Election night is a night where folks’ eyes are glued to their TV screen as results come in seeing where their candidates of choice stand in the races. However, this year, voters in Saint Joseph County waited nearly two hours longer than normal.

“We do think that it was necessary to make sure that we really followed each step and did a proper job,” says Chuck Leone, Chairman of Saint Joe County Election Board. “We were reluctant to release information that might affect people’s choices.”

Some poll centers across the county had voters waiting in line past 6:00 when polls closed. The delayed results from poll centers impacted how ballots were counted back at the election headquarters.

“Many times, the results from the poll centers come in first and then those are released, then the other ones are released later,” Leone explains. “Because we were in the middle, we had been working on this all day, we were in the middle of tallying those, we didn’t want to stop that then go to a new method of input.”

Poll workers and election board members also have to pay close attention to detail when handling ballots and making sure they are following the state’s election laws, which can change yearly.

“In 2022 there were 12 different bills that were passed, all of which that affected election law,” Leone says. “Each step of the process, while each one may have only taken two to three minutes, but when you’re doing that for dozens and dozens, or hundreds of individual voter decisions, you don’t want to hurry through it, you make sure you do it right.”

The delayed election results may have caused some anxiety for candidates and their supporters, but the election board was simply making sure they were following the rules and providing accurate results.

“It doesn’t affect the results at all, other than it makes us feel more confident that we’ve gone through all the steps that we should have,” says Leone.