Convenience Voting

(Follow links below to read other articles)
-Convenience Voting In Colorado

The "Anywhere, Anytime" Voting Plan
It is time for a change in the way we vote. We have a system that is identical to the way Abe Lincoln used to vote: You go to a certain place on a certain day to cast your ballot. Imagine going to a Wal-Mart and being told you could not shop there because you were in the wrong store. Yet we do this every election day all across the country.

Our system is fraught with problems. People go to the wrong precinct. Voters who do not know were to go vote deluge election offices with inquiries. They show up at the wrong precinct and do not know whether to vote on a failsafe ballot, a provisional ballot or go to another precinct.

In Knox County we have 92 precincts. It is a challenge to find and train that many officers. They need to know about failsafe voting, change of address procedures, provisional ballots, name change procedures and split precincts, as well as all state and federal laws.

The result is confusion on the part of the voter and frustration on the part of election workers. Worse, the process disenfranchises voters. How many voters give up and go home after being turned away at the wrong precinct? How many cast a Provisional ballot that is not counted because it is in the wrong precinct? In Knox County we had almost 100 ballots in the 2004 Presidential election that were not counted. We are one of 3034 counties in the country. Why do we make it so difficult and confusing to vote?

In Tennessee, efforts have been made to make it easier to vote through Early Voting. It begins 20 days and ends five days before the election. Any qualified voter can vote at any location. Knox County has led the state in Early Voting. In the 2004 Presidential contest, we had seven locations and over 108,000 people voted. Over 60% of the voters voted early. This was a record turnout and a record percentage for Early Voting.

Early Voting is popular for several reasons. First, it is “Anywhere Voting”. You can vote at any location. There is no wrong precinct. Second “Anytime Voting” is convenient. You can vote when you want to, anytime during an extended voting period.

Early Voting is an idea whose time has come. In Knox County the Election Commission has worked hard to increase turnout by making it easier and less confusing to vote. We have talked to community groups, schools and local media to encourage people to vote early. The media has been especially effective. The Commissioners and I have been interviewed on television. We also called local radio talk shows every morning to report on totals, give out locations and times, and encourage people to vote early.

Now is time to take the next step. At a fifth grade class, a girl asked me “Why can’t you vote at every precinct?” Good question. We have the technology. It will make election administration easier. It will make it easier and less confusing for the voter.

Let’s see exactly what we are proposing. The “Convenience Voting” idea has two components. First, is the “Voting Center”. These centers will be scattered across each county and, like Early Voting sites will allow any qualified voter to vote at any one of the sites. This “Anywhere Voting” feature is one of the most popular benefits of Early Voting and helps explain why a large majority voted at one of our seven sites. We need one site for every 25,000 registered voters (active and inactive). The legislation should specify one site per county commission district to ensure fairness.

In Knox County, we could have 12 Convenience Voting Centers: The Courthouse, UT Center, Downtown West, Farragut Town Hall, Karns/ Powell, Norwood, Halls, Fountain City, East Town, Carter, Love Kitchen and South. With Early Voting, we have already done a number of things to secure sites. We use Clerks’ offices at Halls and East Town and other government buildings in Farragut and downtown. We have gotten property owners to donate space. We have also rented space. In 2004 we spent a total of $4000 renting spaces for both the August and November elections.

This “Anywhere Voting” component will eliminate the wrong precinct problem. It is easier and less confusing for the voter. By reducing the total number of voting places we will need far less officers. Running an election has become very complicated. It is a challenge to find 96 people who know about provisional voting, failsafe voting, change of address procedures, change of name procedures, as well as applicable state and federal laws dealing with elections. It would be much easier to have a dozen well-trained officers. We will also have less workers and better-trained workers. We can choose the best ones and spend more time training them. Payroll costs can be cut by 10% or more.

Each of the Voting Centers will be connected via computer. This will provide several advantages. First, it will help prevent fraud. As soon as a person votes at one site, their history will be updated immediately. This would prevent voters from going from poll to poll voting at each one. Secondly, it will allow us to instantly update the voter history. This will eliminate the cost and labor of updating history, a chore that takes some six workers weeks to complete after the election.

Larimer County in Colorado is using the Voting Center concept. Click here to access an article about the success they have had.

The second component of the Convenience Voting Plan involves “Anytime Voting”. It sets up an extended voting period, beginning twenty days before the election and running through Election Day. This is essentially the same process as we now use with Early Voting. We will be eliminating the five-day gap between the end of Early Voting and Election Day. State law requires the sites to be open a minimum of three hours per day. This would give us the flexibility to keep our payroll to a minimum during slower local elections. We could plan on being open from 11:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. during the last 4 days of the voting period.

Savings:
There would be a number of cost savings under the Convenience Voting plan. First, 10% or more can be cut from personnel costs. It costs Knox County $250,000 to run a Presidential election. We think we can reduce that amount by $25,000. In addition, in smaller elections we will have the flexibility to decrease hours at the voting centers. Now we do not have the ability to decrease hours on Election Day. We have to be open at 96 precincts from 8 to 8. As time passes we may want to reduce the number of days in the voting period. Twenty days is a long time and experience has shown the Early Vote workers are not very busy except the first day and the last several days. The Election Administrators in Florida have recommended an 11-day voting period.

Other savings will occur: There will be no need to print and assemble poll lists. This takes at least 25 man-hours. The chore of entering voter history after the election will be eliminated. In Knox County we have 5 or more staff that work on this for a month. It takes over 800 man-hours. We will need fewer election night workers; fewer cell phones, fewer supplies. We have a staff person who spends weeks before the election preparing the supply boxes for 96 precincts. Her work would be cut by 75%. We would save at least half (about $4500) on the delivery and pick up of machines. The advertisements we run for precinct locations will be much smaller, resulting in savings.

Costs:
We would need additional computers and printers as well as high-speed transmission lines for our Voting Centers. Cost: $125,000. In addition we will have to mail a notice to each voter informing them of the change in their voting place. The cost for Knox County would be $70,000. All Election Commissions are required by federal law to mail address verifications to each voter every other year. This mailing could be coupled with the notice requirement, thereby eliminating that additional cost.

It is time to change an antiquated, complicated and outmoded system. If you were designing a voting system from scratch you would not make Knox County voters go to one of 96 places in order to vote. We can make it easier and less confusing for citizens to vote. We can make it easier and more efficient to administer elections.

We need to methodically plan and then implement the next step in our electoral process: Convenience Voting.

Greg Mackay
Administrator of Elections, Knox County
Greg.Mackay@knoxcounty.org
(865) 215-2483