Election day is just a few days away, and Allen County voters now have vote centers instead of precincts.
The change came last year, and some residents have expressed concern in various forums about what it means.
Betsy Kachmar is the co-president of the League of Women Voters of Fort Wayne. She says that most rural counties in Indiana switched to vote centers years ago, including some in Northeast Indiana. Allen County is now among the more densely-populated counties adopting them.
"It is something that has been considered pretty thoroughly for the last several years, and it is also something that almost all of the counties in Indiana are already currently doing so many of all, almost all of the rural counties have been doing that for years. The concern is that change is hard," she said. "The flexible part is that any of the 53 vote centers that are available will be fine for people to go to.”
Those 53 vote centers are down from the more than 100 precincts previously offered in Allen County. But each vote center will have at least 10 machines.
"Some of the positives about vote centers are that, just like early voting, where you can go to any of the now seven locations, they added or more early voting locations this year to help cut down on the traffic," Kachmar said.
Indiana drivers’ licenses will work as identification, as will a passport.
The Indiana legislature banned the use of student IDs for college students to use while voting. The law was stayed by a federal judge, but then that stay was overturned by the federal appeals court.
So for now, college IDs remain off the table for use for voter identification.
Below is the list of early voting centers and dates, as well as information for all the new Allen County voting centers.
