EVANSVILLE — Nearly 550 mail-in absentee ballots in Vanderburgh County were never returned, leading elections officials to believe the completed ballots were lost by the U.S. Postal Service.
County Clerk Marsha Abell Barnhart made the stunning disclosure at Friday’s meeting of the Vanderburgh County Election Board. Barnhart made it clear she didn’t believe voters received the absentee ballots but then opted not to complete and return them. Voters who request ballots by mail are keenly motivated to vote, said Barnhart, who also served as clerk from 1997 until 2005.
“You’re not going to go to all that much trouble and then ignore it,” she said. “You will have a few. We always have some. But that’s hundreds!”
Pointing to a large stack of absentee ballot applications the Vanderburgh County Election Office had received, Barnhart estimated during the meeting that the number of unreturned absentee ballots could reach as high as 400.