Early voting considered

Lawmakers might also allow large central balloting areas

By Bob Bernick Jr.
Deseret Morning News   16 June 2005

      Come 2006 you may be able to vote for your favorite candidate up to two weeks before Election Day, or vote while you shop at your local grocery store or mall.
      Utah lawmakers are considering changes to state election code to allow what's termed "early voting."
      They will also consider letting county clerks ?who run elections for federal, state and local offices ? consolidate dozens of voting precincts into one or more large "central voting" areas such as malls or sporting event halls.
      The changes would be more convenient for voters ? always a good thing, Michael Cragun, state elections director, told a legislative committee Wednesday.
      But the real driving force behind the change is money.
      Utah is getting $26 million to buy new, federally mandated electronic voting machines. That will buy maybe 7,500 machines. But hundreds of additional machines will be needed for voters to avoid long lines on Election Day.  
      The way around a lot of unhappy voters (who, by the way, also elect legislators), is to spread out the times and places where those voters can vote.
      And a possible way to do that would be to let voters vote up to two weeks before Election Day and to allow citizens to vote anywhere in the county.
      For example, said Steve MacDonald, deputy elections director, he lives in Draper but works at the other end of the valley on Capitol Hill.
      New technology would allow him to vote during the day, maybe on his lunch hour, in a central voting area, maybe the Delta Center, up to two weeks before Election Day. His unique Draper city ballot would be stored along with all other Salt Lake County jurisdictions in the electronic voting machine ? called a DRE.
      He could vote, see an electronic printout of that vote, be immediately recorded as having voted (so he couldn't go home to Draper and vote again later), and do it at the Delta Center, elections experts said.
      Members of the Government Operations Interim Committee decided to draft legislation that would allow such sweeping changes to traditional Utah voting practices.
      But final decisions are far from over.
      Over the past two years, several legislative committees have refused to allow early voting. One reason is that it would make some campaigns ? especially low-budget legislative campaigns ? change tactics.
      Specifically, legislators wouldn't be able to effectively do their traditional literature s the weekend before Election Day ? for up to half the voters might have already cast their ballots in early voting.
      But Cragun said numerous studies in states with early voting show that the process doesn't favor one political party over another, doesn't necessarily favor one candidate over another, doesn't affect voter turnout by that much (a slight increase, perhaps), and is greatly liked by voters.
      "You have to have better-organized campaigns," said Cragun, who used to be a Davis County commissioner and knows something about local, low-budget campaigning. "But that's a good thing" for any candidate.
      A diligent candidate could even find out who had voted early from the county clerk so he could target those in his district who had not yet voted. Same thing in voter turnout ? why waste calls to homes whose adults had already cast a ballot?
      Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Lewiston, said early voting may actually let the "public quiet a campaign, if you see 50 percent (of voters) has already gone to polls (with a week left in campaigning), who would go on TV and on the radio with ads? This could be a very positive thing on political campaigns."
      Officials in Reno, Nev., saw absentee balloting (a form of early voting) go from 2,000 people in 1996 to 34,000 in 2004 after liberal, aggressive early voting options were given to voters, said Pat Beckstead of the Davis County elections office.
      Some Utah counties could see a third of citizens voting early "right off the bat" in 2006 if the option was well publicized and convenient central voting locations were found, Cragun said.
      The old absentee ballot option would still be available. But like today, a person would have to show up in the clerk's office personally and apply for a ballot before getting one.
      Under the new DRE system, a registered voter would just have to show up at a central voting area, sign in, show what ID was required and would vote immediately on a touch-screen DRE.
      While realizing change is coming, Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, said he hopes that whatever computer-based system is used, some thought and care is taken to consider senior citizens, who out of fear or for whatever reasons won't use computers.
      "That group has been so faithful in voting for so many years, and many of them don't understand or embrace technology."