People in Hamilton County love to early vote, and they especially like to early vote close to home.  I wanted to be there when early voting began in Fishers for the very first time.

Would there be a long line, or would the early voting idea in Fishers turn out to be a dud?  I got my answer very quickly.

On the first day of early voting in Fishers on Wednesday, October 19th, the entire first floor lobby of City Hall was packed.  The people working regularly on the first floor of City Hall said people had been coming in for days thinking the Fishers early voting hours had already started.

I heard people waited for 1-2 hours to cast their vote on that first day.  My wife and daughter wanted to early vote so we planned to visit City Hall the following Friday, thinking the novelty would have worn-off and the wait time would be less.

Let’s just say I was very wrong. On that Friday, the wait appeared to be more than 2 hours. Therefore, we journeyed north to downtown Noblesville, where the wait to vote was closer to 30-45 minutes.  There were plenty of voters in Noblesville, there were just more workers and machines to administer the voting process.

I saw Hamilton County Election Administrator Kathy Richardson on that first day of early voting in Fishers.  She told me there was only so many voting machines she could provide in both Fishers and Carmel, and that led to some of the wait times.

On that first day of early voting in Fishers, Richardson made an announcement to all in line at City Hall that there was no wait if any wanted to early vote in Noblesville.  No one left. Maybe they all wanted to be a part of history, or maybe they just wanted to vote closer to home.  Whatever the reason, people were willing to wait.

What this tells me is this…..people in Hamilton County love to early vote.  I hope county officials, who run our local elections, will expand early voting in the future.  It has been a big hit so far.