Voters in Marion County urged to hand-deliver absentee ballots

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Less than 24 hours before polls open on Primary Election Day and the Marion County Election Board is warning voters with absentee ballots to have them hand-delivered by noon on Tuesday. 

The election board says they recently mailed out 123,000 absentee ballots. They say some voters may be tempted to put them in the mail but state law says otherwise. 

Seventy-three thousand of the recently mailed out absentee ballots haven’t been returned. Clerks in several counties have reported voters having to wait two weeks to get their ballot due to delays with the post office. Others still haven’t received one. 

But there are options, you can hand-deliver it to any of the early voting locations. If it’s after the noon deadline Tuesday, bring it with you to a voting center. You can surrender it to a poll worker, fill out a form and vote in person. If you’ve not received yours in the mail, you can fill out another form and still vote. But if you’ve already mailed yours, you just have to hope it gets there in time. 

“At the end of the day, Clerk Eldridge wants all of Marion County voters, all of their votes to be counted,” Marion County Clerks Office Deputy Director Russell Hollis said. 

Ballots received after noon on Tuesday cannot be counted even if they were postmarked by that date. 

Secretary of State Connie Lawson says more than a half-million Hoosiers applies for an absentee ballot. 

Statewide officials say 60% to 75% of mail-in ballots have already been returned.