QOTD — Early Voting for Delaware?
There’s two kinds of early voting — absentee ballots and the in-person voting (but with limited venues open). Delaware only lets you vote absentee — and even then you need to sign an affidavit with an “excuse” for not being available on Election Day. But if you are following the news, then you know that in-person early voting is starting to ramp up. Should Delaware change its rules for early voting?
Sure, you can sign the affidavit and get your absentee ballot. It doesn’t seem to me that there is much of an audit of affidavits to know if you really are unavailable based on the reasons provided on the form. But I’d like to see Delaware go with “no-excuses” absentee ballots (why should the state care why you can’t be front and center on Election Day?) AND I’d like to see them implement early in-person voting. Locations can be limited, certainly, but why not let voters choose within some defined window when to vote? I don’t know if more opportunity translates into higher turnout — I wish it did, really, because that would be a slam dunk reason to do it.
So what do you think? Should Delaware adopt Early Voting?
Tags: Voting
Seeing neighbors in line provides some warm fuzzies, but that is hardly enough to keep the current system. I’d support early in person voting.
Mitt Romney’s Garbage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68q28r7m_FU
Yes.
Absentee voting as structured in Delaware still leads to a significant percentage of people casting ballots before Election Day. No-excuse early voting would not create a huge challenge to the election system. (It would make things both easier and harder for campaign managers, but that shouldn’t be a consideration.)
I looked at the top-ticket races for the last three general election cycles; DOE doesn’t break out absentee data in its tallies prior to 2006.
2010: 11,660 absentee ballots in Coons-O’Donnell, or 3.8%
2008: 21,450 absentee ballots in Obama-McCain, or 5.2%
2006: 7,992 absentee ballots in Carper-Ting, or 3.2%
All of those percentages could contain a margin of victory in a close race.
What does make me nervous, personally, about early and absentee voting is that there’s no chance for a takebacks. Once your vote is cast, that’s it. So if – just as an example – a candidate gets arrested a week before the election on child abuse charges, he’d still get the vote you cast a month before.
I’m not excited about it. I think businesses would see it as an excuse not to let people out to vote. I think it would make GOTV efforts insanely difficult. Does anyone else remember how many calls from the Obama campaign you got last time? Wanna stretch that over more weeks? And voting places have other purposes, too. I personally HATE school elections, that take place surrounded by the propaganda of the school, but having early voting in the cafeteria when they were using it makes no sense. I think early voting has too many downsides.
It actually makes GOTV easier and gives you less calls. In early vote states, the campaigns know when you submitted your ballot. Once you have submitted your ballot you’re taken off their lists.
Do we really need this? This may just be my area but I’ve never had to wait more than 2 minutes to vote. I’m always either the only person there or there are 2-3 people in front of me. Are there areas of the state with congestion that this would alieviate?
Depending on the time of day – before and after work – I’ve seen lines.
But the goal is not just to eliminate congestion, it’s to make the entire process more convenient. What is the compelling state interest in making people vote on one day?
I’m all for making voting easier. Early voting would do that. My husband has a job where he travels a lot – a good deal of that traveling happens without advanced noticed. He’s missed two elections/primaries because of this. Not here to vote, too late/not enough time to file an absentee ballot.
I’ve had to wait in long lines. And since I’m at home and could walk to the polls… I’ve walked over, looked at the line, returned home and came back later. There’s still a line in my community polling place – which I think is a good thing.
Early voting gives the voter flexibility. Many voters cannot wait a long time to vote.
For what my opinion’s worth, Delaware should adopt an “Early Voting” policy, responsibly and securely constructed. I feel that we have constricted voter access in recent years (by some specific legislation) and I opposed most of those constrictions (unfortunately unsuccessfully). Ballot access and rights of voters to have their vote counted (no matter the futility of their selection) is a basic tenet of an open representative democracy.
As a standard policy I file for absentee ballot every every since I never know what my schedule might be for that day. I have a driving need to vote, but not to make an appearance at the polls.
And it should go without saying that voting on a weekday is silly. Those who might say it interferes with their weekend would be free to use an absentee ballot. With many/most people free to vote to all day there would be no congestion. You would think a concept this simple would have already been implemented.
I am old school with regard to performing my “civic duty” which usually requires standing in line, speaking to hard of hearing poll workers, and fumbling with poorly designed and potentially unreliable voting equipment. It makes me feel good, much like donating blood, but without the juice and cookie.
But more often a majority of Americans come up with reasons or excuses not to take the time or effort to vote, and assuming those who do vote are a representative sample of those who do not, I suppose it is not a problem. But when the system becomes even more restrictive as opposed to more inclusive, inviting, and convenient, then it is indeed a problem, and I fear that is the way we are headed. Therefore, whatever means can be made to remove the barriers to voting, the better off we will be. Early voting, longer term voting hours/days, internet voting, etc. All worth exploring.
Killing early voting elsewhere is part of the GOP’s effort to inhibit minority voting.
I say greater electoral participation is a good thing.
The GOP’s main argument is that the limited number of early voting places tend to be in urban areas and that favors Democrats. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean that making it harder for everyone to vote is the best solution.
In most places, in-person early voting places are in government office buildings — not in schools and other venues that might be closed on election day. So if limited to that, heragain’s issues with inappropriate venues would be dealt with.
I don’t mind going in person or standing in line, but like Mr. Pandora, I can be called out of town at the last minute for work. Mostly I mark that day as a holiday so I’m unavailable (but available to work on campaigns), but there have been times when that is a close run thing. But going to a “no-excuses” absentee ballot solves that too.
Although I support early voting it comes down to the cost. Just to move to “No Excuse” absentee voting the cost was estimated by the Department of Elections to be around $750,000. Because the number of absentee votes increases by almost ten times the current rate. This estimate comes from other states who have moved in that direction, and will require additional equipment. Early voting cost is in excess of 1 million dollars – someone has to pay the poll workers and the rent for facilities!! I and the Department of Election testified at the JFC hearings this past year for “No Excuse” absentee and where told that the money just isn’t available in our current economy.
Let’s follow Oregon’s lead and go with paper mail based voting. Get rid of the nasty machines that have rendered exit polling worthless. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!
Or, allow some early voting with paper ballots and the purple ink on your finger after you have voted, especially if I can choose the finger I dip into the ink!
Early voting is overdue – especially for the primary, which was moved to less convenient Tuesday.
I really appreciate Rep. Jacques weighing in here with the cost estimate. One question, though — Delaware taxpayers are paying Ashland $10M for some R&D activity. Surely that “investment” will bring enough of a return to fund making it easier and cleaner for the people who paid for that $10M to vote?
I sponsored legislation in the last session to allow ‘no excuse’ absentee voting. The current system is cumbersome and difficult. While I also received the estimate of the cost from the Department of Elections, I do not believe that it will cost nearly as much as they claim. There are many cost savings steps to take in our current system which would enable a much higher volume of absentee ballots at minimal cost. For example, absentee ballots are now opened by hand and scanned in to record the vote. The ballots are then stored for two years. Having supervised a high volume accounts payable department, I know that a $1,000 automatic letter opener would save a huge amount of time and cost. In addition, since we are scanning the ballots to record the vote, there should be no need to keep boxes of paper ballots in storage. Lots of room for improvement and cost savings.
Start small. Just offer it at DOE offices, which are centrally located in county seats. Once it gets going, expand to other sites.
Forgive me, but I don’t trust an estimate by an agency that is still struggling to use the Internet.
SW, that would include every agency in the state. Our website stinks. It embarrasses and annoys me every time I attempt to use it.
Thanks, Rep. Williams. I can’t imagine that this would be a huge cost, either. Especially just changing absentee ballots to “no excuse”. I hope you’ll keep working on this issue AND help to push the DOE to get it’s internet presence into the 21st century.
On the web, DOE is the absolute worst. It’s an agency that has two jobs – to run elections, and to inform the public about how to vote. It fails utterly at the last. Information is outdated, scattered, fragmented, in bizarre formats … the list goes on. I know that part of the problem is that the county offices largely run their own operations, which is a huge mistake. The staff are nice, but they’re stuck in a paper and pencil world.
You might reasonably argue that a website being craptastic doesn’t mean the agency is doing a poor job. But it does. That’s free advertising, being read by people who really want your service, and you are deliberately choosing to make getting information as difficult as possible. That is poor leadership.
Edit to add: Cassandra, there is no cost to change the ballots. The printed ballots are separate from the affidavit where you explain your reason. If anything, it would save money by not requiring printing of affidavits. My understanding – and this may be incorrect – is that each voter gets a customized ballot printed at that moment reflecting their individual voting districts (because you can’t estimate how many to pre-print from D20 vs D14, and some overlap Senate districts and thus have a different ballot … etc.)
At least for state offices decided at a general election, it would seem that Art. 5, secs. 1 and 4A of the State Constitution erect significant hurdles to allow either expanded days for in-person voting dates or universal “absentee” voting by residents either in writing, in-person, or electronically. The first constitutional section sets a particular date for the general election and secs. 4A & 4B provide a very restricted, EXCLUSIVE listing of those eligible to vote by absentee ballot. Unless some huge amount of “faux” layering can get over these sections, I suspect it will take a constitutional amendment to allow for any universal advance voting in DE. It is these constitutional provisions that call Rep. Williams’ HB 331 – which seeks to allow universal absentee voting – into question under our State Constitution.
Gary is correct, the changes to the absentee voting process will require a constitutional amendment. In my initial discussion with the department they indicated that legislation would be sufficient. Upon further discussion with other sources, after the bill was introduced, it became clear that an amendment would be required. I hope to be able to bring this to the House at the beginning of the next session.