Bill Bruns said he knew he was going to vote down an early voting site at Ball State University before the Delaware County Election Board meeting began Wednesday.
When he announced his deciding vote, a standing-room only crowd knew it was coming.
"For this election [nothing could have changed my mind about the site]," Bruns said after the meeting. "It was too late. This could have been brought up in January at an appropriate time and it wasn't."
Bruns said he entered the meeting with nine questions that he wanted answered; however, an hour and a half later at the meetings end, he said not all of his questions were adequately answered.
Among them, Bruns said he had yet to hear a good reason why students couldn't use the M.I.T.S. bus or another form of transportation to travel the short distance between campus and the Delaware County building.
He said the purpose of an early voting satellite office was to serve voters far away from the central office. One needs to be in an area where there are larger vote turnouts, he said.
"The students will find a way, if they want, to come down here and vote," Bruns said.
Marge Landers, a Democrat in the voter registration office, suggested other ways to expand voting operations. Landers said the voter registration office should look at expanding its hours to help more people register and vote before election day.
"Working people have a lot more problems meeting the office hours than students," Bruns said. "Some students are only in class for four hours a day. There has to be some time to get on the M.I.T.S. and get here."
A petition with 841 signatures signed by Ball State students and members of the surrounding community was presented by Allison Nimtz. Nimtz, a member of University Democrats, said the petition was signed by members of both parties who wanted to see the vote expanded.
Tom Morrison, vice president of human resources, said if passed, the early voting site would be in Worthen Arena. Morrison also said the university would pay to put in multiple locks in the recruitment room, where the voting machines would be kept.
Bruns said cost to the tax payers was another concern.
Delaware County Clerk Steve Craycraft said the five-day total cost for the early site would total $1,584.
Student Government Association President Frank Hood, having already said SGA would commit $1,500 to the issue, said he would pay the remaining money out of his pocket.
After the vote, Hood said there was nothing else that could be done.
"We provided the best arguments that could be given and had the most support we could get," he said. "This still came down to that [Bruns] didn't want it to happen so it didn't happen. He left no outlet."
Democrat congressional candidate Barry Welsh caught up with the Campus Democrats and Students for Barack Obama after the meeting. He said he faxed a letter to Republican Congressman Mike Pence, Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson asking them to show up at the Delaware County building today in a bipartisan effort to expand the vote. He received no responses.
Welsh said the vote didn't pass as a partisan effort to stifle the youth vote.
"[Republicans] did this to marginalize the students because they are afraid how they are going to vote," Welsh said. "The student body isn't conservative this time and they deserve to be afraid of that."
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