The Vigo Ledger

Transcript — Vigo County Election Board, 2026-09-10

Machine transcription of the recording of the Vigo County Election Board meeting on 2026-09-10, aligned to the video timeline. This is not the official record — the clerk's minutes are, and this is unreviewed automatic speech recognition that mis-hears names and numbers. Check anything that matters against the recording.

Each line is stamped with its position in the recording, both as a clock time and as [t=SECONDS]. Those are the same seconds the archive's source links use: open the recording and add &t=<seconds> to jump to any line.

Speakers were separated automatically and named from the meeting's speaker roster where the evidence supported it; an unnamed voice is shown as Speaker <n>, which is a machine label and not a person's name.

Transcript

  • 0:00:00 [t=0] Speaker 3 (chair): President of the Board. I'm Leanna Moore, Secretary. John Nicholas, Board Member. Gretchen Etley, Board Member. Terry Modisett, County Attorney. Okay. Agenda's heard of light, but let's go through an old business approval of the meeting of June 15th. Minutes. I make a motion we approve those. Minutes. Do we have a second? A second. Okay, move and second. All in favor, say aye. I approve the new business the resolution to amend the vote center plan and you want to give us a little background sure we are here today to
  • 0:00:45 [t=45] Leanna Moore (staff): amend the vote center plan the plan to have Meadows as a week-long voting
  • 0:00:55 [t=55] Leanna Moore (staff): Center may not be available. So we have the resolution says this matter comes before the Vigo County Election Board hereafter the board meeting held on September 10th, 2026. The board after considering the information presented finds as follows. The board adopted a vote center plan at the meeting held
  • 0:01:21 [t=81] Leanna Moore (staff): January 30th, 2026. In the adopted plan, Meadows Shopping Center was included as an early voting center to open on October 27th, 2026. The board has been made aware of issues outside of its
  • 0:01:37 [t=97] Leanna Moore (staff): control regarding the safe and effective use of the Meadows Shopping Center. After diligent search,
  • 0:01:44 [t=104] Leanna Moore (staff): and the Vigo County Clerk's Office is unable to find a location that could accommodate as an early voting center. IC Code 3-11-18.1-15 provides that a county election board may adopt an amendment to the vote center plan. the Beagle County Clerk's Office was able to obtain an Election Day only vote
  • 0:02:13 [t=133] Leanna Moore (staff): center at Woodrow Wilson Middle School so that is what we're here today to vote on it is only going to be Election Day but it is in the same vicinity area so people that are used to going to the meadows will just be able to go right there across the street we will have signage and verbiage to accommodate
  • 0:02:43 [t=163] Leanna Moore (staff): because I'm sure there's still going to be folks that want to go to the meadows and unfortunately we have been unable to find another location close to there
  • 0:02:57 [t=177] Speaker 26: that would accommodate. Do we know what percentage of the Meadows voters voted
  • 0:03:04 [t=184] Speaker 30: not on Election Day prior? I'm not sure we don't have those numbers handy.
  • 0:03:13 [t=193] Speaker 3 (chair): Meadows always had a fairly high number total. Yes they were always really busy.
  • 0:03:18 [t=198] Speaker 32: Yeah they were one of our busiest vote centers. Wilson will take care of it on
  • 0:03:24 [t=204] Speaker 3 (chair): election day I'm not worried about that I'm just thinking about all the people
  • 0:03:26 [t=206] Speaker 34: who voted early early I think there will be other votes if I could the clerk's
  • 0:03:32 [t=212] Speaker 2 (board member): office contacted me about this situation I mean numerous attempts were made to contact Meadows no response and then of course you know watching TV and reading the media accounts where trash isn't being taken out out there some utilities aren't being paid and different various things that the concern was that we could still leave it there and then not be people couldn't get in or we wouldn't have utilities or anything else so the question became are we going to act now while we still have a little bit of time
  • 0:04:05 [t=245] Speaker 2 (board member): or are we just gonna could end up being a catastrophe here so that's kind of what happened i mean several attempts were made like i said nobody would contact us back no one would respond period so it didn't sound good at all
  • 0:04:22 [t=262] Speaker 39: any other discussion on this yeah I was there the other day and it was there's
  • 0:04:27 [t=267] Speaker 42: like no air conditioning I don't think you could have people working there all day election workers
  • 0:04:37 [t=277] Speaker 47 (board member): I don't know what's gonna happen I mean with the trash issue and all that we're
  • 0:04:40 [t=280] Speaker 2 (board member): all familiar with the Board of Health I don't know what's coming down of whether it's going to be open when we start early voting or not. So just too much uncertainty.
  • 0:04:52 [t=292] Speaker 50: They're also in bankruptcy. There's nobody you can even talk to.
  • 0:04:56 [t=296] Speaker 53: So that's probably why we haven't been notified.
  • 0:05:03 [t=303] Speaker 56 (staff): And I was able to pull up those numbers from the primary too if you want those. So early voting the Meadows had 1,191 voters check in and vote but they were just a seven-day vote center and then on election day they had 1,458 voters show up to vote.
  • 0:05:26 [t=326] Speaker 2 (board member): And you know just for the record I don't think anybody wants this I know I know I'm a candidate I mean we all want more voters and no one wants to have to deal with this or have to change this but I don't think we really have much choice
  • 0:05:39 [t=339] Speaker 47 (board member): is what the clerk's office determined. They wanted to confirm that with me. Any other discussion?
  • 0:05:47 [t=347] Speaker 69: No.
  • 0:05:49 [t=349] Speaker 7 (board member): I have a question. Will the same machines be over at Wilson on Election Day that would be at a normal vote center?
  • 0:06:05 [t=365] Leanna Moore (staff): If you'll see, I provided a copy of the layout plan that I sketched up for the Woodrow Wilson location. The space does allow for the exact amount of machines that we were previously using at the Meadows Vote Center
  • 0:06:20 [t=380] Leanna Moore (staff): and with the potential for even adding further machines if we continue to use this location in the future. We can make it even larger.
  • 0:06:29 [t=389] Speaker 79: Okay. Can the people going there park in the Meadows lot to vote across the street?
  • 0:06:37 [t=397] Leanna Moore (staff): They can park pretty much anywhere that they want. Where this area is located within the school, at the entrance, right outside the entrance,
  • 0:06:46 [t=406] Leanna Moore (staff): is the bus parking lot that the administration said that we could utilize as parking on Election Day. So it's right near the door.
  • 0:06:56 [t=416] Speaker 81: Is the school open on Election Day? No.
  • 0:07:00 [t=420] Speaker 86: I'll entertain a motion to accept Woodrow Wilson.
  • 0:07:17 [t=437] Speaker 89: If anyone wants to make it.
  • 0:07:18 [t=438] Speaker 23: I will make a motion that we approve the new resolution 2026-04 amendment of the vote center plan.
  • 0:07:28 [t=448] Speaker 93 (board member): I will second it. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
  • 0:07:34 [t=454] Speaker 3 (chair): Passes unanimously. Okay. Now Wilson's already agreed to this, so they don't need any further notification, right?
  • 0:07:42 [t=462] Speaker 97: Right. Very good.
  • 0:07:44 [t=464] Speaker 98: All righty. That takes care of that.
  • 0:07:46 [t=466] Speaker 99: What else do we have on new business?
  • 0:07:48 [t=468] Speaker 47 (board member): And Leanna, do we have something in writing signed by the school corporation then from Woodward Wilson?
  • 0:07:54 [t=474] Speaker 102: Did we get something in writing?
  • 0:07:55 [t=475] Leanna Moore (staff): Not as of yet. I told them that we were still kind of in the in-between phases of this, that it had to be approved by the board and the IEC. And then once everything was through, I'm going to reach out further to get an agreement on the table. Right.
  • 0:08:11 [t=491] Speaker 106 (staff): And they had previously approved all the schools. Okay. Yeah.
  • 0:08:15 [t=495] Speaker 62: We just need to make sure we follow through and get something in writing
  • 0:08:18 [t=498] Speaker 61: signed by them.
  • 0:08:19 [t=499] Speaker 56 (staff): Yes. And I'll add to that also, the schools are required by law. If we want to use them as a vote center, they have to allow us to do that. but we'll make sure we get everything buttoned up.
  • 0:08:30 [t=510] Speaker 111: Awesome.
  • 0:08:36 [t=516] Speaker 77 (chair): Is there any other new business that you know of that's not on the agenda here?
  • 0:08:40 [t=520] Speaker 115: I don't think so.
  • 0:08:43 [t=523] Speaker 118: Okay.
  • 0:08:45 [t=525] Speaker 3 (chair): Well, one thing I'd like to note, since I just found out about it today, our beloved Leanna is retiring. It was something I said, I'm sure.
  • 0:08:56 [t=536] Speaker 26: but she's served in this facility for no longer than I have and I've been here a long time.
  • 0:09:05 [t=545] Speaker 3 (chair): So I will entertain a motion to wish her well for her retirement.
  • 0:09:13 [t=553] Speaker 121: I second that.
  • 0:09:14 [t=554] Speaker 124: Okay. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to it, yes.
  • 0:09:21 [t=561] Speaker 86: We will miss you.
  • 0:09:22 [t=562] Speaker 124: Thank you.
  • 0:09:23 [t=563] Speaker 7 (board member): and your calm demeanor which at times was stretched but never broken.
  • 0:09:31 [t=571] Speaker 128: Thank you. Okay.
  • 0:09:34 [t=574] Speaker 7 (board member): Any other business? Mr. Madison, do you have any business for us? I don't believe so. Okay. Well, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. All in favor?
  • 0:09:49 [t=589] Speaker 77 (chair): Aye. Okay. We stand adjourned at 1010 a.m.
  • 0:09:57 [t=597] Speaker 134: Oh, gosh. My mask cleaned up here.
  • 0:10:01 [t=601] Speaker 137: This is cool. I'm glad that he did this. This was nice that he got that ready for us.
  • 0:10:10 [t=610] Speaker 141 (staff): They're too blue. Although the voting machine is electricity. Yes, they are. So this is where they'll enter this.
  • 0:10:21 [t=621] Speaker 147: in that hallway