The good people of Arizona have finally finished counting the votes from that big election a couple weeks ago. Republican Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio still won, and so did Republican Jeff Flake in his bid for Senate.
Meanwhile, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, also a Republican, has pitched an idea for making voting easier in his state. As the Arizona Star reports, Bennett would like to see "voting centers" where anyone could cast a ballot, regardless of their home precinct.
In essence, each polling place would have electronic access to a list of every registered voter in the county, complete with an image of that person's signature.
Someone who shows up would be identified by voting precinct. And the poll workers, using printers linked to computers, could then print out a ballot specific to that person, including the right legislative districts, county supervisors and school board members and bond votes.
What that means, Bennett said, is the ballot can be not only verified on site but also put into the machine that, properly programmed, will tabulate the vote. That would apply both to regular and early ballots.
The system is already working in a couple of Arizona counties. The big challenge seems to be with printing the ballots -- if the printers break down, for instance, the voting center needs to have a ready supply of each precinct's ballot. Also, Florida learned the hard way about the perils of printing ballots voter-by-voter. That doesn't mean Arizona couldn't do it, or that Florida couldn't improve on its performance.
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Yeah, right.
Given all of the provisional ballots, etc. does anyone know if any groups (including the Federal government) are planning on taking these results to court?
Dempsey dumpsters for ballot boxes? It's cheaper to centralize the locations so fewer dumpsters need to be ordered.
New Florida motto, "At least we're not Arizona!"
That was the plan all along, damskippy. Birther Bennett is in reality a secret agent working for Rick Scott, who dispatched him to Arizona with the sole duty of making Arizona's elections even more ludicrous than Florida's, in the hope that that would somehow burnish Florida's image.
ok. but has florida finished counting the 2000 election yet?
We used this system for early voting in my county. We still had lines at times, but it went well.
Ummm... if they area coming in to the center to vote, why not electronic voting machines? Why force printing of the ballots? Just think of all the paper we'll save, too!
Take it a step further.
Why not just allow people to vote via their computers?
Imagine all the ID folks.
Where I vote, we have voting machines but they print out a hard copy of your vote, and your vote is not final until you approve the hard copy. It's made me a lot more comfortable with the whole electronic voting thing and I think it could be made to work in the way you're envisioning.
Nothing wrong with "vote by mail". Very easy. No weather to brave. No lines.
This is the way it works with early voting here in OH. You go to the county board of elections. If they can make it work with early voting, why can't it work on election day? Just askin'
Fact of the matter? ALL the stores are closed, people! Good luck with your liberalism, because nobody is open for business anymore! Try to tax somebody. Go, ahead, try.
Leave it to a right wing nutjob to go totally off topic and still make no sense.
I thought the election was over. Why are we talking about this?.....can we talk about why nobody has jobs? It is the same old thing, people. Obama has not delivered squat to the people during the past 4 years.....will he, in the next 4 years?
Mike in Georgia, President Obama has delivered many pluses to the American people. When travelling abroad, no longer do Americans need to apologize for being American; we now have international respect. No longer do we have a government which is conducting an immoral and imprudent war in Iraq; we have a date certain for removal of troops from Afghanistan. No longer do Americans worry about not being able to get medical insurance. No longer do we have a government which tells us who we may love and marry. No longer do we have an economy which is in decline; we are continuing to inch up in our recovery. No longer is our number one manufacturing industry - automobiles and the related aluminum, glass, and plastics industries - about to be closed down. No longer do we have a government which seeks to deport good people who are American in all but papers. Yes, there is still more to go. But with all the really important things the President has already delivered for the United States and for Americans, we have many things to give thanks for. Over the next four years the President will continue to delivery good policy for all. Oh, and many people have jobs today that did not have them yesterday... and there will be more jobs tomorrow. And for the real question: why are we still talking about this? Because democracy is important and good. It is also very American. Shame that the nuts on the far right only want certain votes to be cast - and don't care if votes are counted or not.
I like the general idea of "voting centers", but I suspect that he wants fewer voting centers rather than making all polling places capable of handling out-of-precinct voters.
Allowing a particular precinct to handle out-of-precinct voters should be easy and should be treated as the exception. Most voters would still go to their own precinct polling place, but those who work across town would be able to vote during their lunch hour at the precinct near their work, etc.
Reducing the number of polling places, though, would only suppress the votes of the less mobile constituents, making them have to walk / catch a ride farther than necessary.
I think that the most sensible legislation on this matter would be a national law (governing only federal elections, obviously) stating that all polling places must be staffed and equipped such that no person has to wait more than an hour between getting in line and stepping into the voting booth. Repercussions of failing to provide a uniform and equitable voting environment to that (rather low) standard would be Section-5-on-steroids style federal oversight of elections in the affected precinct for the next, say, five election cycles.
Knowing about how many people will show up in a precinct to vote isn't rocket science. Knowing how many poll workers and how many booths are required to keep the line length at less than an hour should be simple. Providing functional equipment across the board should be a simple matter of management (which, strangely, Republican SOS's appear less adept at). A federal law attaching draconian penalties to failure of state and local election officials to do their job seems like the only way to start pulling at least the most overt politics out of the equation.
As an official observer at an AZ countywide polling place, I can say the primary cause of so many provisional ballots was the Arizona voter ID law. If the address on your photo ID did not match the one on the list of voters, you got a provisional ballot, unless you just so happen to have two other legally defined pieces of ID with the address matching your photo ID. Since you could live anywhere in the county, for many not any easy trip to run home to find an electrical bill, tax bill, bank statement, etc. You did have a week to go to the county recorder's office with your supplementary ID. This is a geographically large county and for many a very long drive to recorder's office. I will be curious as to how many were thrown out. (In a primarily rural county, many have PO mailing address, physical address on driver's licence. Automatic mismatch.)
On precinct specific ballots, this particular place was given ballots for about 2/3 of the precincts. Why not all precincts, I have no idea. And no printer. They ran out of some precinct specific ballots mid-morning. Voters could use one of two touchscreens, but in short order the line was long. It was a 45 minute trip to deliver extra printed ballots as soon as someone was available to make the trip.
The most curious cause for many provisional ballots was the voter flagged as supposedly mailed an absentee ballot but never received one. This happened too often to be a case of absent mindedness. One fellow was quite irate because he had made a special effort to tell the recorder he did not want an absentee ballot.
The good news is that the poll workers were well trained, courteous, efficient with excellent supervision. They did the very best that was possible.
Provisional ballots, long delays on results will be a fact of life for some time to come unless the voter ID law is deleted or significantly modified. Unfortunately the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arizona's right to require voter ID. (Referendum passed in 2004 on voter ID but also included language for proof of citizenship which is now on hold while waiting Supreme Court decision.)