NOBLESVILLE — The Hamilton County Election Board failed to get a unanimous vote it needed to move the county to a countywide Vote Center model.
On Thursday, Republican appointee Ray Adler cast the deciding vote against the measure, keeping the county in a traditional precinct-based voting system. County Clerk Kathy Kreag Williams and Democratic appointee Greg Purvis voted in favor of the measure.
“With our growth to over 280,000 registered voters, it was the right fit at the right time,” County Clerk Williams said in the press release shared with WRTV. “We have been patient, worked through the process, and were at a point where it would have worked for us. It all came down to needing three votes, and we were one short.”
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This decision comes after the Election Board in Allen County approved a similar proposal on Monday.
“I just think we should let Allen County go through it and see what problems they have,” Adler, the Republican appointee who voted down the measure, said in the release. “We’re changing voting for hundreds of thousands of people and I want to make sure it’s not an experiment.”
“It’s disappointing because I know there was a lot of bipartisan support for the measure,” said Purvis, the Democratic appointee to the Election Board. “I wish Mr. Adler had shared some of his concerns more openly. Maybe we could have worked through it. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sure this worked right just to have it go nowhere.”
According to the release sent from Hamilton County, the Vote Center model requires approval from all three governing bodies: County Commissioners, County Council and the Election Board. In Hamilton County, both the commissioners and the seven members of the council voted unanimously in favor of the measure. Public sentiment in a countywide survey suggested that 60% of the respondents were in favor of the measure, while 10% were indifferent, the release said.
68 of Indiana's 92 counties have already adopted the Vote Center Model. Precinct voting will remain in place in Hamilton County for the 2026 Primary and General Elections. According to the release, Hamilton County will now have to find polling locations for 15 new precincts for 2026, bringing the total number of precincts to 235. The Vote Center model would have only required 57 locations, per the release.
