The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an editorial pleading with the General Assembly not to let the vote center pilot program expire. Tippecanoe County, along with Wayne and Cass Counties, was allowed to create voting centers where anyone in the county could vote, regardless of the voter’s precinct of residence. The person was given a ballot specific to their precinct.
Personally, I like them because they’re very convenient. For example, I can vote downtown during the day when I’m at work. The Journal & Courier editorial tells me it’s also less expensive. However, legislation to extend the program is apparently tangled up with other proposals before the General Assembly and the voting centers may expire. I hope they don’t. But, that’s big time politics for you.
It never ceases to amaze me why good bills can’t be done as a stand alone bill. Guess that would be too simple and make for less horse trading on other matters when they are lumped into big bills.
Vote Centers are the wave of the future. Can’t believe they didn’t extend them.
The vote centers were convenient. Before we had them in Wayne County, I was in the position of working at a polling place, but having to leave that polling place to vote in my precinct.
Pila: The vote centers were convenient.
I would ‘guess’ that that’s the ‘problem ‘. Obama campaign spent lots of effort getting ssupporters to vote before tthe actual election date.Also there was a perception that if you voted on election day,then your vote would be thrown out. The line I personally voted in,standing in line 3 days early, for 2 hours was an Obama celebration. Perhaps,but Im just guessing,that Republicans think the best way to get back the majority is to regiment voting the way it used to be and encourage people to ask for absentee ballots ( which is a Republican strategy).Voting fraud in this country has never been illegal voters,but purging whole lists of legal voters from poll lists.Democratic voters are predictable and generally bunched geographically.This is just my opinion over time.
In Florida for example,there are about 100 counties and if only 3 counties vote democratic majority,the democrat wins.This is the statistic I remember from election day.
Is it possible to go back and tally the voting center votes separately? Also voting centers were set up for voting only before election day in some states,and Im not sure how Indiana was set up,so I maye have posted out of context.
I can only speak for Wayne County, not anywhere else in Indiana. There were a few voting centers that were set up for early voting about a week before election day. Those centers were also open on election day. The rest were open on election day only.
Wayne County had the distinction of being the last county in Indiana to get its “unofficial” votes tallied on election night 2008. The county went red, but the state went blue.
I used to work at in county government, which was heavily Republican, and as far as I know they liked the vote centers. The husband of one of my former co-workers was responsible for getting all the precincts set up every election year, and it was a pain, according to my co-worker. Every polling place had to be accessible, which is good, but it can be hard to find suitable buildings in the smaller towns. They also needed adequate parking and room to accommodate the equipment, poll workers, and voters. If a building changed ownership or management, the new owner could decide that s/he didn’t want to have voting take place there, which meant that some precincts switched polling places frequently. I think that both Republicans and Democrats–at least at the local level–liked the ease of voting centers.
People are mixing up early voting and voting cetners. Two different things.
I’m not sure who you are referring to as “people” mixing up early voting and voting centers, but I know for a fact that my county had voting centers that were open before election day that were also open *on* election day. Early voting also took place at the courthouse. On election day itself, additional voting centers opened.
Yeah and in Tippecanoe County we not only had vote centers, but early voting in multiple locations. It’s so convenient here – which BOTH parties on the state level seem to dislike. We take the polls to the major nursing homes (encourages the senior conservative vote) as well as have them open 10 hours a day for 9 straight days leading up to election day in two major supermarkets and a mega-church (even on SUNDAY!). Frankly along with the Obama wave, it change the way voting is done here.. and also allows campaigns to identify who among their supporters have not voted, days in advance, and drive them to the polls.
I can’t believe that anyone had a problem with it.. I voted on Purdue’s campus both times it was allowed several days in advance, so that I could work that day in campaigns. Frankly, it’s a LOT more secure than the absentee ballot process that the Republicans favor.
What is clear from reading this sequence of posts is that voting is not not only a state-controlled function but locally controlled within the state. In Fl, now famous Broward County,where I vote there were a few widely scattered voting centers set up for pre-election day voting.When a voter went in he could be from anywhere in the county ( Broward County has a population of 1,700,000,densely populated from the ocean to the Everglades.. about a 10 miles-wide,30 mile long strip)These centers seemed to draw people who didn’t normally vote.So many voters had come to polls before and found they were no longer registered,and then it turned into an endless political fight of words.So it was a way to give everyone more of a chance to vote.
3 days before the lection these centers were closed down and then on elction day,polls lists were returend to his home voting place ,and everyone had to go vote in his assigned precinct,as had been usual.
The complaint was that no where enough centers were open and that they weren’t open enough days.Response to early voting far exceeded forecasts. Some voters stood in line til 2 am acccording to news reports,because once in line you were guaranteed to vote.
I think Indiana’s system,as explained, makes more sense and was more democratic,and far better organized…Keep the new centers open both before and during election day.anythng to make voting more convenient.
But in every state it seems clear :Republicians fear too many non-qualified voters will vote and Democrats feel that too many legally registered voters will be denied. Like Obama or not, give him credit for expanding democracy.That’s not to say ‘expanding democracy’ is veryone’s goal. Obama didn’t mandate voting centers,but his candidacy created a new positive outlook,imo….I enjoyed standing in a 2-hour line; it was like the country waking up.. not to sound too dramatic and emotional…..Some days pre-voting lines were much longer,but people were remarkably patient and there is an environment here that can be volatile. Election day also lines were long.
I live near a high school and I have taken European visitors just to walk past during closing time. No two kids are the same shade or speak the same language or dialect. It’s diversity with a capital D.
I live in a gated, very middle class Jewish-Hispanic-‘Other’ neighborhood,with most people having moved here from New England, Long Island and New Jersey.The midwesterns tend to relocate over to the west coast in Naples.
Come here for a lesson in diversity. It’s been a wonderful enightening experience.
@Lou and Hoosier 1: I definitely think that the convenience of the voting centers made them popular, and I know that many people took advantage of early voting since they didn’t have to do it at the courthouse. Now, for me to drive back to my precinct to vote isn’t that big a deal–Richmond is pretty small. Still, I liked not having to rush back to my precinct before 6:00 p.m. to vote. I could see if someone worked in one town and lived in another, or lived in a metro area that having convenient voting centers open on and before election day would be quite popular. Whether it continues in Indiana or not, I believe that early voting at locations other than the county courthosue *and* voting centers open on election day itself are the wave of the future.