Your neighborhood polling place may join typewriters and Model T’s if one bill passes the legislature. News 13’s Cody O’Hara spoke with senators favoring the bill who say it will increase voter turnout, as well as one who says he sees this as a way to close some polling places. “We need to make it easier for people to vote and this bill goes in the opposite direction,” said Senator Charlie Scott of Natrona County. A bill being held back in the Senate until Wednesday would allow electronic voter check in at any local polls as well as establish optional voting centers, but some senators say it will lead to polling place closures. “I don’t know of any clerk who has any intention to close any existing polling places,” said Senator Cale Case of Natrona County.
Natrona County Clerk Renea Vitto tells News 13 she has trouble recruiting the required 3 poll workers for each polling place. She also says the county would save money by consolidating voting locations. Senator Charlie Scott of Natrona County says he sees closures on the horizon if the bill is passed.
“Some of the urban areas it will make it a little easier. Particularly in Sweetwater county if they put a polling center out handy to the mines people can vote in a shift change. That might help their vote, but in the rural areas it will suppress it,” said Scott.
“Voting centers are most likely to be adopted with big counties like some place like Cheyenne where folks would be able to vote at the place that is open rather than going to the place in their own precinct,” said Case.
Full Article: Bill Proposes Voting Centers and E-Poll Books.