Governor Daniels vetoed SB 209 which would have allowed for voting at vote centers and required certain notices be given to citizens who have to cast provisional ballots.
I had some commentary on the House version here. The Governor’s veto message is here (pdf). He says:
While this bill contains provisions that would make the act of voting more convenient, it does not contain sufficient safeguards against fraud and abuse and removes long standing bi-partisan checks and balances in the conduct of elections.
Secretary of State Rokita disagrees:
How ironic it is that the one local government reform that actually passes the legislature ends up getting vetoed. Vote Centers is perhaps the only local government reform that so far has been proven unequivocally to save taxpayers money. I would expect, given the serious fiscal condition of the state, that the concept is important enough to find its way into the budget bill so that all 92 counties be given the opportunity to realize the unquestionable taxpayer benefits and savings.
I don’t know what the politics of these vote centers are. The concept is that the citizens of a county can vote at a variety of locations throughout the county instead of at their particular precinct. In Tippecanoe County, we were one of the pilot counties for this project. And, personally, I loved it. This meant that, even though I live on the south side of town, I was able to vote at the City Building downtown when I had to attend a deposition near there that: a) made it inconvenient to vote in my precinct; and b) made it very convenient to vote downtown that day. From a purely selfish point of view, it seemed like a Good Thing. So, I find Gov. Daniels veto disheartening. (And I very rarely find myself on the same side of an issue with Secretary Rokita.)
As a poll-worker, I was able to vote at the City County Building which was convenient. My vote for president didn’t get counted though. I voted for a certified write-in candidate, but no votes for that candidate were reported in my precinct.
Doug, I am shocked.. that I agree with Rokita on ANYthing. But the Governor is fulla crap once again. The vote centers is the way ALL counties in IN should vote. And the Republicans have still retained the easiest scam of all — the mail-in absentee ballot.
UGH.. get modern or get out of the way. I thought these people were in favor of local control. I doubt the people of Tippecanoe Co would vote against vote centers. They take over the schools and then drain them of money..
Get rid of voting. All it does is give the collective an opportunity to exercise tyranny over the individual.
Too many people have fetishized representative government, forgetting that the form of government is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. No form of government is desirable for its own sake; it’s only desirable to the extent that it keeps government from violating the sanctity of individual sovereignty. Voting has clearly failed to do that.
Pretty funny that Daniels and Rokita are on opposite sides of this issue. Wayne County had vote centers, and they worked pretty well except for a couple of things.
1.During the May primary, at least one of the vote centers had problems with its machines, which meant that people had to go to the remaining centers and stand in line for an hour or more after checking in. Even so, from what I heard while standing in line, people seemed to embrace the vote centers.
2. There was a glitch with the computers on the night of the general election, but I’m not sure that it was related to the vote centers or was something that might have happened anyway.
In Wayne County, some–but not all–of the vote centers were open about a week before the election, which was really nice. That was nice for those of us who didn’t vote absentee and didn’t want to go to the courthouse for early voting. (Parking spaces at the courthouse are difficult to find.) A lot of people took advantage of the opportunity to vote early.
In Tippecanoe County — both in the primary and general election– something like close to 40% of all votes were cast early.