By DAVE SCHULTZ
There will be voting in Wells County this fall, but not much.
In fact, Harrison Township will be the epicenter for what balloting will take place on or before Nov. 7. There is a ballot referendum concerning the Bluffton-Harrison Metropolitan School District and contested races in Poneto, part of which is in Harrison Township.
That’s all there is for voting in 2023.
The Wells County Election Board made it official Tuesday afternoon — the communities of Bluffton, Ossian, Uniondale, and Markle, on the calendar for municipal elections, don’t have any contested races. So the candidates that have filed in those communities, whether they are new candidates or incumbents, are in.
BHMSD has put a school safety referendum on the ballot this fall, seeking to boost the number of school resource officers serving the school district.
And in Poneto, there are two candidates for clerk-treasurer — Republican Lou Ann Reinhard and Democrat Bradley Schoeff. There are also six candidates for the three town council positions — Republicans Isaiah A. Medina Geels, Paul W. Miller, and Becky Smith; Democrats Kelly K. Coleman-Potter and Ashley O’Reilly; and Linda L. Ogle, independent.
Because of the limited number of people and issues on the ballot, the election board decided Tuesday to have limited early voting and at a limited number of sites — at least as compared to year with more contests.
From Oct. 23 through 27, Monday through Friday, there will be voting in the clerk’s office on the second floor of the Wells County Courthouse. That will be the plan for Oct. 30 through Nov. 3, again at the clerk’s office. Voting will be from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day.
There will be additional early voting in the clerk’s office from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 4, and again from 8 a.m. to noon on Monday, Nov. 6.
There will be early voting from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, at the Wells County Community Center at the 4-H Park.
The only vote center that will be open on the official Election Day, Nov. 7, will be at the 4-H Park. The hours that day will be 6 a.m. to. 6 p.m.
In other action Tuesday, the election board members — Roy Johnson, Larry Sell, and County Clerk Beth Davis — did the following:
• Decided to hold the board’s September meeting at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 22. That will coincide with the public test of the county’s voting system.
• Made formal notice of the name change of Northern Wells Community Schools to Norwell Community Schools.
• Made changes to the county’s voting plan for next year. Those changes, however, will not affect the changes approved for the 2023 balloting.
daves@news-banner.com
