Owen County election board approves correction to add 'the third' to Norman C. Warner on ballots

The Owen County Election Board on Thursday approved a request to correct the ballot listing for Norman C. Warner after members found the suffix “the third” missing from several precinct ballots.

Board members identified the omission while proofing machine and absentee ballots and moved to submit a form asking the county clerk to add the designation to all affected listings. The motion also authorized the clerk and her deputy to review the correction and sign off without requiring the board to reconvene for the same change.

The change was proposed as a narrow, clerical correction: members noted the candidate’s name appears correctly in some locations but omits the suffix in others. A motion to submit the correction and delegate sign-off authority was seconded and approved by the board; no roll-call tally was recorded in the meeting transcript.

The board recorded the correction request on its ballot sign-off sheet and noted they would verify activation codes and precinct name spellings while completing the administrative paperwork. The session included separate proofing of absentee ballots drawn from the same file as machine ballots, which is why members reviewed both types together.

The board’s action is administrative: it addresses a formatting / candidate-designation inconsistency rather than a substantive change to ballot content. The board noted the correction is intended to align how the candidate appears across all precinct pages and to match other entries in the vendor system.

The meeting record shows the board completed the signoff paperwork for the session after noting the correction and confirming other ballot items were spelled and ordered correctly.

The board did not identify a formal deadline for when the clerk must implement the correction; the item will be recorded in their official paperwork and transmitted to the clerk’s office for processing.