An entirely unrelated amendment has been added to this bill that would restrict early voting to 16 days rather than the current 28. No public testimony was taken on a major change in policy and this will make already long lines even worse.

Allows certain counties to scan voted optical scan ballot cards during the early voting period and on election day without using secrecy envelopes.  

Currently, there are no voting systems in Indiana that use optical scan ballot scanners, which allow for ballot retraction, as this bill proposes.  

However, if passed, this bill will introduce uncertainty into the chain of custody for ballot handling and could be exploited by bad actors, or by others acting in collusion, or by a mistake caused by an election official lacking an understanding of the complex ballot procedures.