Waiting on the Final Results: Elections both National and Local

With it being the day after the United States elections, people want to know who won. The reality is, it takes time to count votes, especially those that have been mailed and need to be processed. In some states, such as Indiana, counting cannot start until the day of the election. When there are thousands of votes, this takes time.

At time of this writing, the races at both the national level and local level are simply too close to call. At the national level there are several states remained that were the Presidential candidates were within a point or two and the number of uncounted votes was such that the winner could change. The speculated winner varied based on the news channel you listen to.

One of the key elections that has the potential to impact people within Fishers as much as the Presidential election is that of the three school board positions. This is an area that has been ripe with conflicting views of what is important with several candidates focused on pushing kids into the school buildings, while others have focused more on the safety concerns and metrics raised by the Fishers Health Department.

While the “Covid” issues for school board are an immediate issue, there are a number of huge topics that will impact the Fishers community over the next four years that the three elected school board members will be involved with. These include the likelihood of hiring a new HSE School Superintendent when Dr. Bourff retires. This also includes decisions that will impact local taxes from standard school budgeting, which is currently over a quarter of a billion dollars annually, to the possibility of a large referendum renewal. Redistricting is likely to happen more than once over the next four years which also impacts many in the community as kids get redirected to different schools. The building of the new elementary school in Wayne Township is pretty much decided, however, additional building updates including possibly replacing Fishers Elementary School are also on the radar. Over the past year, policy issues have caused some of the most contentious school board meetings, and policies around equity and inclusion continue to be a hot topic.

The current election has three positions open. As of this morning, 100 of the precinct numbers had been reported. The numbers currently stand as follows:

One of the races are very close (less than 140 votes); however, there are still over 29,000 mail-in/absentee ballots to be counted for Hamilton County. While not all of these ballots will include votes for the HSE School board, many will, and thus the current results are likely to be impacted and could change.

How long it will take to count these ballots has been speculated as within a day to possibly two or three days. Until they are counted, the vote in Delaware Township is simply too close to call, and the vote in Wayne Township isn’t locked in either! Just like with the Presidential election, we must wait while the counting happens!

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