Indiana Electronic Meetings: Quorum, Notice, and Policy Rules

Indiana law lets members of public governing bodies participate in meetings electronically, but there is no single rulebook. Three separate statutes govern Indiana electronic meetings, and which one applies depends on the type of body: political subdivisions follow Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3.5, state agencies and certain other entities follow section 3.6, and any covered body meeting during a declared disaster emergency follows section 3.7. Getting the wrong track can invalidate official action, so the first move is identifying which statute governs the body you serve on or are watching.

Which Statute Applies to Your Body

The three frameworks differ on how many members must be in the room, how remote members may vote, and how often any one member may appear electronically.

Political subdivisions — section 3.5. Cities, towns, counties, townships, and school corporations. This is the framework most local officials will use.¹
State-level and specialized bodies — section 3.6. State boards and commissions, charter school governing bodies, airport authorities, and conservancy districts. The physical presence bar is lower here and the annual attendance rule is simpler.²
Disaster emergencies — section 3.7. When the governor or a local executive has declared a disaster emergency and meeting in person would pose an imminent health or safety risk tied to that emergency, the body may meet entirely by electronic means.³

The political subdivision rules came in through House Enrolled Act 1437, signed in April 2021 after the surge in virtual meetings during the pandemic.⁴ If your body doesn’t fit cleanly into one bucket, check with counsel or the Public Access Counselor before scheduling a remote meeting.

Physical Presence and Per-Member Limits

Political Subdivisions

At least half of the governing body’s members must be physically at the meeting location. A five-member city council needs three members in the room before anyone else can join by video.¹

Each member also has an individual cap: no more than 50% of the body’s meetings in a calendar year may be attended electronically. For a body that meets monthly, that is six remote appearances. Four situations allow a member to exceed the cap:

Military service
Illness or another medical condition
Death of a relative
An emergency involving actual or threatened injury to people or property

Any remote attendance outside those exceptions counts against the 50%, and exceeding it can cost the member the ability to participate remotely later in the year.¹

State Agencies and Section 3.6 Bodies

The floor is the greater of two members or one-third of total membership. A nine-member state commission needs three members in the room, not the five a similarly sized political subdivision would require.²

Certain committees appointed by state university boards of trustees, the Commission for Higher Education, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and the Indiana Secondary Market for Education Loans are exempt from the physical presence requirement, as are governing bodies where at least 51% of members have a disability.

Instead of an annual percentage cap, each member of a section 3.6 body must physically attend at least one meeting per year.²

Disaster Emergencies

Physical presence requirements under 3.5 and 3.6 are suspended entirely during a qualifying disaster emergency. A quorum must still participate (in person or electronically), the public must be able to attend and observe in real time, and meeting in person must pose an imminent health or safety risk related to the specific emergency. For school corporations and charter schools, at least one school must also be closed because of the emergency.³

Technology and How Votes Must Be Taken

Whichever section applies, the technology has to permit simultaneous communication among all participating members and let the public attend and observe in real time. Public observation is not required during executive sessions.¹ Email chains, pre-recorded statements, and other asynchronous exchanges do not qualify.

Voting rules diverge by track. Under section 3.5, a remote member may vote on final actions only if that member can be both seen and heard during the vote, which effectively requires videoconferencing whenever the body plans to act.¹ Under section 3.6, every vote must be a roll call.² Disaster emergency meetings likewise require roll call votes.³ Secret ballots are prohibited at any Open Door Law meeting, electronic or not.⁵

If the connection drops. For political subdivisions, a technology failure that knocks out a remote participant or cuts off public observation does not automatically invalidate the meeting or any action already taken. The meeting can continue, and votes remain valid, as long as the still-connected members satisfy quorum and voting requirements. A disconnected member who cannot rejoin stops counting toward quorum, which may force adjournment if the remaining group falls below the threshold.¹

Quorum with Electronic Participants

Under the Open Door Law, a “meeting” occurs when a majority of the body gathers to take official action.⁶ That majority is the default quorum unless a separate statute sets a different number.

Members participating electronically count toward quorum. A seven-member county council with four members in the room and one on video has five present for quorum purposes even though only four are physically there.¹ The same principle applies under sections 3.6 and 3.7. Quorum and the physical presence minimum are two separate tests, and both have to be met: enough total participants for quorum, and enough bodies in the room to satisfy the physical presence floor.

Public Notice

Notice of any meeting must go out at least 48 hours in advance, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays. A Monday afternoon meeting needs notice posted by the previous Wednesday afternoon. The notice must give the date, time, and place.⁷

Notices go at a public location, usually the agency’s principal office or the meeting site, and to any media outlets that have asked for them. When the meeting will include electronic participation, the notice should tell the public how to access it remotely. Inadequate notice can give a court grounds to void the resulting action.⁸

Written Policy Requirement for Political Subdivisions

Before a political subdivision allows any electronic participation, its governing body must adopt a written policy setting procedures for remote attendance. The statute does not dictate the contents, but the policy may cap how many members may participate remotely at a single meeting, cap the total number of meetings with remote participation per year, and require advance notice from any member planning to join by electronic means.¹ A body can adopt rules stricter than the statutory floor; some allow remote participation only for illness or travel, for example. Holding a virtual meeting without a written policy in place invites an Open Door Law challenge.

Memoranda and Public Records

Every meeting must generate written memoranda as it progresses. Required contents include the date, time, and place; which members were present and absent; the general substance of matters proposed, discussed, or decided; roll call votes showing how each member voted; and any additional information the electronic meeting statutes call for, such as identifying which members joined remotely.²

Disaster emergency meetings carry extra documentation duties. The memoranda must name each member who participated electronically and each member who was absent, and must identify the electronic platform used by both the body and the public.³

If the body uses an agenda, a copy must be posted at the entrance to the meeting location before the meeting starts. Any rule, ordinance, or final action adopted by reference to an agenda number alone is void, so the memoranda need to describe what was actually decided.

Memoranda and minutes are public records under Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act. Anyone may inspect and copy them during regular business hours, and the agency cannot require the requester to say why.⁹ Some records fall under the disclosure exemptions in Indiana Code 5-14-3-4, but meeting memoranda generally do not.¹⁰ An electronic recording of the meeting supplements the written memoranda; it does not replace them.

Enforcement, Deadlines, and the Public Access Counselor

Any person may sue over an Open Door Law violation without showing special harm. Courts can issue declaratory judgments, order injunctions, and void actions taken at meetings that broke notice, executive session, or meeting-location rules.⁸

The window is short. To void an action or obtain an injunction that would invalidate it, the suit must be filed within 30 days of the violation or within 30 days of when the plaintiff knew or should have known, whichever is later. If the action appears in published minutes, the clock runs from when those minutes first become available.⁸

Deciding whether to void an action, the court weighs whether the violation affected the substance of the decision, whether it blocked public access or understanding, and whether voiding would serve or harm the public interest. A procedural slip with no real impact may not lead to voided action; a deliberate workaround of transparency almost certainly will.

Officers and management-level employees who intentionally violate the law face civil penalties of up to $100 for a first violation and up to $500 for each additional one. The agency itself can also be fined. Individuals are personally liable; the agency cannot cover the penalty. A court can impose these penalties only after the Public Access Counselor has issued an advisory opinion finding a violation. Officials who relied on their own legal counsel or the attorney general have a defense.¹¹

A prevailing plaintiff can recover reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs, and litigation expenses, but only if they first sought and received a response or advisory opinion from the Public Access Counselor before filing, unless immediate filing was necessary to prevent a violation. A prevailing defendant can recover fees if the court finds the suit was frivolous.⁸

All of that makes the Public Access Counselor the practical first stop for anyone who thinks a violation occurred. The office responds to informal inquiries from the public and from officials, and issues formal advisory opinions.¹²

ADA Accessibility for Virtual Meetings

Federal law layers on another obligation. A 2024 Department of Justice rule updating Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires state and local governments to make online services and digital activities accessible to people with disabilities, including access to “town meetings” and similar civic events. Governments with populations of 50,000 or more must comply by April 2026; smaller jurisdictions have until April 2027.¹³

In practice, videoconferencing platforms and posted notices need to work with screen readers and other assistive technology, images in notices need descriptive alternative text, and documents shared before or during the meeting should be formatted for accessibility. An electronic meeting a person with a disability cannot access could draw an ADA complaint on top of any Open Door Law challenge.

1
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3.5 – Electronic Meetings of Political Subdivisions
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5 – Public Meetings (Open Door Law)
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3.7 – Electronic Meetings During Disaster Emergency
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Indiana General Assembly. House Bill 1437 – Electronic Meetings and Signatures
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3 – Open Meetings, Secret Ballot Votes, Member Participating by Electronic Means of Communication
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-2 – Definitions
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-5 – Public Notice of Meetings
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-7 – Violations, Remedies, Limitations
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-3-3 – Right to Inspect and Copy Public Agency Records
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-3-4 – Records and Recordings Exempted From Disclosure
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-7.5 – Civil Penalties Imposed on Public Agency, Officer, or Management Level Employee
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 5-14-4-10 – Powers and Duties
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ADA.gov. New Rule on the Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Governments