An Indiana county hires yet another election supervisor, hoping she’ll stay

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana county lost its top election official nearly every other month over the last year after a longtime supervisor resigned following a counting error in the November 2022 tally.

Voting advocates hope fears of a rocky election year will ease now that Monroe County has named a supervisor who is vowing to stay. The county clerk promoted a 24-year-old elections office assistant to the top job on Feb. 12, just 12 weeks before Indiana’s May 7 primaries to choose candidates for U.S. Senate, governor and president.

“Given the national mood, public confidence in this election will likely be tested,” the League of Women Voters of Bloomington-Monroe County said in a January letter urging county officials to quickly fill the role.

Voting advocates and local party chairs say enormous responsibilities and relatively low salaries have made it difficult to keep recent hires in Monroe. As home to Indiana University and the college town of Bloomington, the county is a Democratic island in overwhelmingly Republican Indiana.

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