Early voting kicks off next week

It’s almost time to start early voting for the May primary election.

Primary voters will be choosing their party’s candidates for president, but also voting for candidates for Bartholomew Circuit Court judge, county commissioner and at-large county council members, among others.

Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps said early voting at the courthouse begins on April 5th and ends on May 2nd.

Phelps says that there will be early-voting opportunities aside from the courthouse. Those locations will beĀ atĀ Donner Center, Main Source Bank on the west side of Columbus and Flintwood Wesleyan Church. These new locations are scheduled to be open April 25 through the 30th. Hours will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. that Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 30th.

Phelps says that he, and his office, are looking forward to this election. He notes that this will be the first county-wide election to use vote centers instead of traditional precincts. Last year’s Columbus municipal elections also used voter centers, but only for the voters in city limits.

He says that they have learned much since last-year’s city elections. He noted that in some vote-centers, voters had to wait up to two hours to cast their ballot. Phelps says that he is hopeful that they have taken the proper steps to keep these kinds of delays from happening again.

However, he added that this election is expected to see a high turnout as the state’s primary elections are expected to help actually help decide the winners on both the Republican and Democrat Presidential ballot.

Click for vote center locations