Wyoming: Lawmakers Propose Changing Voting Location Requirements | KCWY

The intent is to save time, effort, and money as well as make it easier for people to vote. For example Natrona county has 46 polling places this bill could narrow it down to 3. Secretary of State- Elect Ed Murray says he supports the concept, but others are skeptical. “Three polling places isn’t very many for our geographic area and the problem is even worse in the larger counties like Carbon and Fremont,” said Republican State Senator Charles Scott. Senator Scott says Natrona county is equal in size to Connecticut, in which three doesn’t sound like enough to accommodate voters in Natrona county. County Clerk Renea Vitto says at first it may increase voter turnout.

South Dakota: Costs, logistics slow voting center expansion | Rapid City Journal

Despite few reported problems with voting centers during South Dakota’s recent primary election, lofty setup costs and logistics are slowing the expansion of the system that replaces residents’ precincts. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, South Dakota is one of 10 states that let counties adopt the alternative system. They rely on an electronic check-in process that gives voters the flexibility of visiting one of several locations in the county. Seven counties used the centers in the primary. Research indicates that the centers save money in the long run, said Wendy Underhill, a program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures. But skeptics argue implementation of the system could be pricey.

Indiana: Officials examine grim voter turnout numbers from May primary | Evansville Courier & Press

Vanderburgh County tied for the lowest turnout statewide for May’s primary election and fell below state average with 6 percent of voters casting ballots. Statewide, 13 percent of voters participated in the May 6 primary, according to numbers released this week by the Indiana Secretary of State’s office. Warrick County came in higher at 11 percent. Vanderburgh County joined St. Joseph County with the lowest turnout in the state, though four other counties, including Posey County, saw a 7 percent turnout. Primaries, especially absent of high-profile statewide or national races as was the case on May 6, are historically marked by low numbers at the polls.

Illinois: Solution sought to voting machine issue in Madison County | The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Should a tornado or other catastrophic event cause a power outage during the Nov. 4 mid-term elections, Madison County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza is fairly certain that early voting would proceed without much disruption. That’s not the case now, as the county continues to be in the precarious position of operating with two different hardware and two different software systems for its elections. But Ming-Mendoza is seeking federal Help America Vote Act funds to purchase early voting tabulators and Ballot on Demand printers and software that would bring both systems onto an even platform. The package costs $228,000 though the HAVA grant would cover the cost entirely. Ming-Mendoza said the purchase would also drop the county’s annual licensing and maintenance expenses from $98,000 to $41,000 since the it would be decreasing its election machine inventory from 162 to 17.

Indiana: Shelby County shelves vote centers | The Shelbyville News

A concept that originated in 2010 with discussion that Shelby County officials could save approximately $26,000 by changing how people voted has been given a no vote. It was discussed at that time and then later this year to move Shelby County to voting centers. Voting centers are polling places connected through secure Internet connections, where eligible voters in the county may vote anywhere through an electronic poll book that is updated immediately. Shelby County Clerk Vicki Franklin confirmed this week the Election Board voted to not move toward vote centers at this time but do a consolidation of polling locations.

Colorado: Secretary of State Scott Gessler has little time to make election law work | Denver Post

The work of Democrats in the legislature and Republicans collecting signatures in Colorado Springs and Pueblo has put a figurative ticking clock on the desk of Secretary of State Scott Gessler, the state’s chief election official. Nobody, however, is calling the tick-tock a time bomb just yet. Here’s the dilemma: Democrats passed House Bill 1303 in May, which requires that a ballot is mailed to every registered voter in each election, even the ones who haven’t voted in awhile. The law also allows residents to register all the way to Election Day. The law took effect July 1, and most assumed it would first apply to the primaries and the general election in 2014. Recall elections against state Senate President John Morse in El Paso County and Sen. Angela Giron in Pueblo mean Gessler’s staff has weeks, not months, to figure out how to make the system work without chaos for county clerks and fraud in the elections’ outcomes, a concern Gessler and his staff voiced before the bill was passed. Voters have had the option of choosing mail ballots for years — and most voters choose it — but now everyone will get a mail ballot, or choose to show up in-person at vote centers, if they wish.

South Dakota: Secretary of State Gant: E-Poll Books Prevent Voter Fraud | Keloland.com

An investigation is underway in Mitchell after Tuesday’s school board election. Craig Guymon, 54, has been arrested, charged and released on bond on a felony charge of voter fraud. Guymon ran for school board in Mitchell as recently as last year, he even filed a lawsuit contesting the election results after he lost. Now he’s accused of double voting but Secretary of State Jason Gant says an investigation into that case could have been avoided with the new electronic poll books he is working to roll out across the state. All it takes is a scan of a driver’s license to confirm a voter’s registration and if that person has already cast a ballot. “That’s why vote centers and electronic poll books are definitely the way to go, not only break down the barriers and allow more people to vote, but also to ensure no one can vote twice,” Gant said.

Voting Blogs: Vote centers turn 10 – a decade later, jurisdictions slowly joining movement | electionlineWeekly

A decade ago, Larimer County, Colo. Clerk Scott Doyle was looking for a way to deal with many of the changes mandated by the Help America Vote Act. Working with the county’s elections department and practices already in place for early voting, Doyle and company created the concept of vote centers to use in all elections. Now, although Doyle has recently retired, his idea of consolidating voting precincts into a small number of come-one, come-all polling places is spreading to more and more counties across the country. “The success of vote centers is largely due to their attractiveness to voters who might not otherwise vote,” said Robert Stein, political science professor at Rice University who has studied vote centers. “They afford inexperienced votes many of the benefits in-person early voting offers, in those states that allow voters to ballot before Election Day. “ Counties making the move to vote centers cite a variety of reasons for making the switch, but the biggest factor of all seems to be cost savings.

Colorado: Senate OKs mail-ballot voting, as GOP maintains fraud concern | The Denver Post

The Colorado Senate passed a bill Thursday that would provide a ballot by mail to every state voter, allow vote centers for those who choose not to use the mail ballot and — controversially — allow people to register and vote on Election Day. The bill passed 20-15 with the full support of Democrats and no Republican votes. The bill passed the House on a party-line vote last month. Before it can go to Gov. John Hickenlooper for a signature to become the new way elections are held in Colorado, the bill must return to the House for approval because of “technical” amendments added in the Senate. While legislators in both parties liked the convenience of more by-mail voting, Election Day registration was the grist for the oratory mill.

Colorado: Election measure sure to bring fight | The Durango Herald

Coloradans would vote primarily by mail, and they could register to vote on Election Day under a bill Democrats are proposing at the state Capitol. Neighborhood polling places at schools and churches would be a thing of the past, and in-person voting would happen at a few centralized voting centers in each county, if the bill passes. Even before it has been introduced, the bill has touched off a partisan fight. But La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Lee Parker, a Republican, supports the bill and says it’s not a partisan issue. “To me, this is really bipartisan. This makes sense. This is not Republican versus Democrat,” Parker said.

Indiana: Decision on Floyd County voting machines questioned | News and Tribune

While his company came up short on its bid to supply Floyd County with new voting equipment, Jeremy Burton with ES&S — Election System & Software — wanted to at least voice concerns with the Floyd County Commissioners at a special meeting Wednesday night at the Pine View Government Center. Burton and attorney John Kraft, who represents ES&S, told the commissioners and members of the election board that the county overspent when deciding to purchase new machines, along with software and other equipment, from RBM Consulting, for $396,000. Floyd County will move to vote centers in 2014. Burton said his company’s bid was 21 percent less than others, including RBM. Also, ES&S has been supplying voting equipment and services to Floyd County since 1992. Kraft told commissioners they could have stayed with the current voting machines, which would have saved tax dollars. He said ES&S could have continued to service the current machines through 2016, and there was no reason to end the relationship or move to new equipment. However, Commissioner Chuck Freiberger said there were several meetings held on the subject before deciding on vote centers. He said the idea was first discussed five years ago.

Editorials: Groups study future of voting in Indianapolis | Elizabeth L. White/Indianapolis Recorder

Marion County political leaders, elected officials, poll workers and community groups met this week in the Public Assembly Room of the City-County Building to begin the discussion about the future of voting in Indianapolis. Launched in February, the Voter Experience Project is the Marion County Election Board’s effort to listen, deliberate and ultimately decide how and where we will vote in the future. Why are we having this conversation now? Our current fleet of voting equipment is more than 10 years old. Purchased in 2002, the first generation machines are starting to show signs of wear despite a vigorous maintenance schedule. Replacement parts are also becoming more difficult to find. In addition, our software license and maintenance contract expires in 2014, and we don’t know if the software vendor will continue to support their product after next year.

Editorials: We should set standard in election systems | Maggie Toulouse Oliver/Albuquerque Journal

Recently, the Pew Center on the States gave New Mexico a composite (2008/2010) rating of 19th in the nation for election administration. While this is much higher than most state-by-state comparisons featuring the Land of Enchantment, we still clearly have more work to do to improve our election processes. Correspondingly, the 2013 New Mexico Legislature provided a wonderful opportunity for our state to move forward and modernize the election process. Several pieces of legislation progressed with the intent of improving how we conduct elections in New Mexico. A few of them are even now awaiting the governor’s signature. In 2012, many counties in our state became national models for how to efficiently and effectively run elections, while at the same time streamlining processes and saving money, by conducting Election Day vote centers. While these counties are to be praised for their successes, other counties struggled with the new system and many voters had bad experiences at the polls.

Arizona: More vote centers, more staff next time | YumaSun

Yuma County will open more voting centers in future elections as one way to avoid a repeat of the congestion and frustration seen here last November. Instead of 11 voting centers, there will be 15, and all voting centers may have more staffing. In addition, the county hopes to do on-site printer tests, set up in bigger facilities, keep more people on hand to troubleshoot technical difficulties and whittle the wait times from as high as four hours to no more than one. “We all know we had some pretty significant challenges we dealt with,” Yuma County Administrator Robert Pickels said Wednesday as he presented the board of supervisors with an after-action review of Election Day 2012, detailing problems and solutions.

Arizona: Bennett makes push for ‘voting centers’ | Arizona Daily Sun

Arizona voters may be able to cast their ballots in 2014 at any polling place anywhere in the county. Secretary of State Ken Bennett said Tuesday he wants lawmakers and county officials to consider “voting centers” that are capable of not just accepting but processing all ballots, regardless of the home voting precinct of the voter. He said changing patterns in how Arizonans decide to vote makes the current system not only overly cumbersome but unnecessarily slow. What it also could have been, he said, was embarrassing.

Indiana: Do Vote Centers Really Save Money? | Indiana Public Media

Eight counties used vote centers, instead of precinct voting, in this year’s election. One of the claims for switching over to the vote centers is that it would save counties money on election costs. But does switching to vote centers really save the counties money? A 2010 study by the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute concluded every county in Indiana could save money by switching to vote centers. A vote center is a polling place in which any voter in the county can vote – eliminating the need to go to a specific precinct to vote.

Indiana: St. Joseph County commissioners spar over contract extension with elections consultant | southbendtribune.com

Questions about whether a proposal to extend a contract between St. Joseph County and its elections consultant would prevent the county from moving ahead on a plan to implement vote centers sparked a tense back-and-forth Tuesday between two members of the Board of Commissioners. The proposal, approved by the county Election Board in August, extends the county’s contract with RBM Consulting another four years — Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 31 2017 — under the same terms and conditions as before. An elections services and systems company based in Indiana, RBM provides service to the county in support of its current voting system. “Nowhere in this four-year contract extension is voting centers even listed as an option,” Commissioner Dave Thomas, D-District 2, said in a prepared statement. Thomas argued that extending the contract would lock the county into the current, precinct voting system until at least 2018, contrary to the Election Board’s wish to move to vote centers as soon as 2014.

Editorials: Meet the hanging chad of 2012 – absentee ballots | NY Daily News

At this point in a closely fought presidential campaign, pundits and pollsters are checking their guts and sifting through data to try to predict November’s winner. Those of us who specialize in election law engage in a more heart-wrenching task: attempting to make an educated guess about the likelihood that one or another election irregularity will lead to a Bush v. Gore-style meltdown. My candidate for the honor of the next potential chad to dangle: absentee ballots. Competition for this year’s biggest potential ballot box nightmare is pretty stiff. We can expect the rise in voter identification laws to lead to some confusion at the polls. This confusion may arise both from the voters who face unfamiliar barriers to entry and from untrained poll workers who must enforce sometimes arcane, novel laws on the fly. This will probably lead to a large number of provisional ballots — the kind a poll worker gives you when they can’t find your name on the rolls. The legality of these would be determined in a post-election recount, if one comes to pass. But the silent, creeping revolution in the timing and method of voting presents bigger opportunities for trouble. In recent years, absentee and mail-in ballots have been steadily rising as a share of total ballots cast. The majority of states now allow “no-excuse absentee” voting, meaning anyone can ask to cast a ballot by mail. You don’t need the political equivalent of a doctor’s note, as was true previously.

South Dakota: Three Counties Test Vote Centers | KELOLAND.com

Voters in three South Dakota counties experienced a newer kind of voting for the primary election. The idea of vote centers is to make casting a ballot more convenient. Voters can stop in at any poling place in the county. A worker will scan their driver’s license and give them the right ballot. “It’s been going very, very well,” Karen Doerr said. Doerr is auditor of Potter County, which is one of three trying out the new system during this primary election. Sully and Hyde counties are the others.

Indiana: Vote Centers are Here to Stay in Indiana | State of Elections

Indiana is one of several states pioneering vote centers, which are consolidated polling places open to any eligible voter in a locality. Vote centers came into existence in 2003, when Larimer County, Colorado first pioneered the configuration. Today, nine states have laws permitting vote centers, but Indiana was the first to use them on a large scale. In 2006, the Indiana Secretary of State began a pilot program, allowing counties to test vote centers to determine if they would be an effective means of election day administration. Three counties, Cass, Tippecanoe, and Wayne, participated in the program from 2007 to 2010, and their reports prompted the state legislature to pass a bill during its 2011 session to enable all counties to adopt the vote center model as their permanent method for voting.

Ohio: Toledo crowd protests early vote center closure | Toledo Blade

Shelia Stewart thought the buses parked outside the Lucas County Board of Elections Early Vote Center meant there was a crowd ahead of her in line to vote. The buses, however, had brought protesters who were there to register opposition to a newly passed state law that shut down the early voting office at 13th and Washington Streets as of 6 p.m. Friday.

“I’m surprised,” said Ms. Stewart, 55, of Toledo’s Old West End after she tugged on the locked door. “My husband said I would not be able to vote, but I did not believe him.” The confusion over the canceled voting exemplified the complaints of the group of black clergy and union leaders about the shutdown of early voting. Several said early voting would have peaked this weekend as voters, having absorbed just about all the information there was to get about the many candidates and issues in the election, were ready to cast their ballots.

Indiana: Vote centers up for debate in Monroe County | Indiana Daily Student

Voting rights and procedures were debated again, as they were last fall, at a 4 p.m. Tuesday work meeting of the Monroe County Election Board. The board, staffed by Judith Smith-Ille, Jan Ellis and Monroe County Clerk Linda Robbins, discussed a motion to stop using voter precincts and instead open vote centers for the 2012 elections.

Smith-Ille, the lone Republican on the board, questioned the timing of the proposal. “I don’t want you to think I’m against vote centers. I’m not. I just don’t think 2012 is the year to do them,” Smith-Ille said. There are currently 90 voting precincts in Monroe County, Robbins said. There would be far fewer vote centers, if they were implemented, which would make the voting and vote counting processes easier, she said.

Arizona: Vote Centers: Is less more? | KYMA News 11

In the up coming Presidential election, voting may be a little different in Yuma County. The number of polling sites needed is much smaller because early voting is the popular way to go. So, Yuma County wants to simplify by consolidating from 42 polling locations to about 10 to 15 locations.

Yuma County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, said every election it’s the same story, “We receive hundreds and hundreds of calls every election from frustrated voters that have gone to the wrong place.”

So Yuma County plans to do something about it. Pouquette said new legislation allows them to have Vote Centers, locations open to all registered voters. Yuma would be the first county in Arizona to adopt the Vote Center.

Arizona: Phoenix tries out voting centers | Washington Times

Phoenix, the nation’s sixth largest city, aims to save money and add convenience by allowing its 650,000 registered voters to cast ballots for Tuesday’s city election at any of 26 voting centers. The centers replace 128 assigned polling places. While most Phoenix voters cast early ballots, typically mailing them in, those who vote in person formerly had to vote in their precincts.

Arizona is among nine states that either permit jurisdictions to replace precincts with vote centers or authorize pilot projects in selected administrations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The centers don’t necessarily boost overall turnout but can save money for governmental jurisdictions, a 2010 study by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Indiana’s Ball State University found.

Phoenix, the first Arizona city to use voting centers, likely will save up to $350,000 on the previous $1 million cost of a city election, with reduced spending for hiring election workers, renting polling places and preprinting ballots, City Clerk Cris Meyer said.

New Mexico: Fewer voting sites, shorter lines? | KRQE

The City of Albuquerque is cutting a lot of its polling locations to help alleviate the long lines and confusion for voters. The county could soon be following suit. City Clerk Amy Bailey said for the October municipal elections the word precinct is out. Recently, city councilors approved the plan to move away from precinct polling locations to voting convenience centers. “We have decided to do Election Day a little bit differently than how it’s been done in the past,” Bailey said.

Bailey said that plan would consolidate the city’s 168 voting sites to 49. The convenience is that voters can vote at any location. “The most important thing for people to know is you’re not assigned to you’re not assigned to one particular place to vote on Election Day,” Bailey said.