Meade County auditor reports high absentee activity, readies public testing and training

Ria Crane, Meade County auditor, told the commission that staff had processed 821 voter registrations at an earlier point and "over 2,800 absentee ballot applications" as of the previous night, with a single-day high of 232 applications. She said the office ran its first mock election last week, has another mock scheduled tomorrow and will hold public testing of equipment on Nov. 1 at 2 p.m.

Crane said the county has prepared new binders and updated equipment suitcases and that an election-training "school" for workers is set for Oct. 31 at 10 a.m., which she expects will draw a full room. She also said volunteers continue to sign up; "we do have all the election workers lined up, and I'm actually very happy to say that we do have more that are still volunteering," Crane said.

Crane did not provide party-level turnout breakdowns, saying the office does not run those reports for a general election. She described the county's public testing and mock elections as part of standard preparation and said the secretary of state's office had not been heavily engaged with local staff on routine matters. The auditor invited commissioners to ask questions and noted that procedures and training materials have been updated ahead of the election.

The commission did not take policy action during the update; the auditor encouraged public attendance at the testing and the Oct. 31 training session.

The county will continue routine election preparations and public testing through early November.