Voting Centers Could Replace Neighborhood Polling Places

Also a little blurb on voter turnout in this last recent primary election below.

A proposed voting reform is certain to raise some suspicions among Democratic voters who often question the motives of Republicans in charge of election offices. The article explains better how these centers would operate, but the gist is that they would save money, have extended early voting access, and over 40% of voters area basically already voting this way with current early voting options.

I imagine that Democrats are going to look very closely at how it could affect turnout among their constituents who might need or prefer that a neighborhood precinct polling place still be an ultimate voting option. Is it worth the cost?  Are there security or transparency issues that are unique to precinct polling places? Given the hostile foreign probing and interference, it should certainly be something to keep an eye on. More from this News-Gazette excerpt:

Tom Kacich | County clerk on board with voting-center bill
November's general election could be the last one in Champaign County under the current voting system of dozens of polling places that are open and staffed for one or two days per election.

Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten is hoping, again, that Illinois lawmakers are willing to try out the voting center concept that's already in use in 13 states, including Indiana, Iowa, Colorado and Texas.

"I think Champaign County voters in increasing numbers are indicating a preference to vote at large, centrally-located universal voting locations, whether they do so during early voting or on Election Day," Hulten said last week. "There are discussions in the Legislature to potentially allow jurisdictions to opt into a vote center-type model going forward, potentially in 2019."

Hulten has pushed the idea before and it didn't go far. But this year there's legislation in the Senate (SB 2821) sponsored by Sen. Terry Link, who not only is chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party but also sits on the Senate Executive Committee, where the bill was assigned.

And the idea of voting centers is supported by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform as a way of improving making elections more convenient and efficient...

"The advantage is it's easier for voters to have multiple options of where they can vote and make them highly visible and have them staffed by highly trained judges with the best technology and new equipment," he said. "The advantage to us is that operating 20 or 25 voting centers takes significantly less equipment and thus less expensive capital equipment than operating 90 or 100 Election Day polling places. And it allows us to scale more effectively for turnout."

In last week's primary election, he said, the county needed about 475 election judges at its 90 locations. With voting centers, he estimated there could be 10 judges at each of the 20 to 25 locations.

"Judges are a big expense for us. It also makes it easier for us to find highly trained judges at a time when a lot of our judges are retiring from the service," Hulten said.

Turnout: Sign of things to Come?

There was also a quick blurb in the round up of local politics often found at the end of Kacich articles on the latest primary turnout. I leave it to the partisans to spin this as either prophetic or rendered meaningless due to other factors:

To underscore how total the Democratic domination was in Champaign-Urbana voting last week is this nugget: Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans in every one of Champaign's 39 precincts. That includes even the most traditionally GOP precinct in the city, City of Champaign 38, which votes at the Windsor Road Church of Christ.

Almost 54 percent of the 502 voters there took Democratic ballots, compared with the 22 percent in the 2014 primary.

Full article here.