City halls might not be secure enough to house absentee ballot polling locations for November’s election, the Kootenai County Clerk’s Office decided. It’s too expensive to provide staff to work at the absentee polling sites too, the office said, so for the first time in decades, several Kootenai County municipalities won’t have their city halls available for voters to cast an early ballot.
So anyone – from Rathdrum to Hayden – who wants to cast an absentee ballot early and in person will have to do so at the Kootenai County Elections Office, 1808 N. 3rd Street, in Coeur d’Alene. It’s the latest change Kootenai County Clerk Cliff Hayes has implemented since his election to office in 2010, having run his campaign on fixing the issues that arose in the heavily litigated 2009 Coeur d’Alene general election.
“The security of the ballots is paramount in the process of the elections,” Hayes said this week. “The concept of not trusting anybody doesn’t come in to play.”
But unlike the previous changes, this one seems unwarranted for some cities, who’ve offered the service for 20-plus years.
Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls are two cities unhappy with the decision. The financial and security reasons are flimsy, at best, they said, and they wonder if other reasons are driving it.
“That argument doesn’t float here for us,” said Eric Keck, Post Falls city administrator. “It makes you wonder if in fact that revenue they’re receiving for the elections is going to the elections. It’s kind of a curiosity for us.”
Full Article: Vote here, only – Coeur d’Alene Press: Local News.