Arizona voters may be able to cast their ballots in 2014 at any polling place anywhere in the county.
Secretary of State Ken Bennett said Tuesday he wants lawmakers and county officials to consider “voting centers’’ which are capable of not just accepting but processing all ballots, regardless of the home voting precinct of the voter. He said changing patterns in how Arizonans decide to vote makes the current system not only overly cumbersome but unnecessarily slow.
What it also could have been, he said, was embarrassing.
“If the close race in Arizona this year had been the presidential race, and the electoral college was tied 265 to 265 and the whole country and world were waiting for Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, what do you think the scrutiny would have been?’’ he said.
Bennett said the problem is the method and the timing of how people vote.
“Statewide, for example, I think we had about 450,000 early ballots dropped off at the polls on election day or the day or two before,’’ he said. That last-minute process, he said, creates problems that do not exist if people simply show up at their own polls, get a ballot and vote it there.
“Right now if you drop your ballot off at anyplace, it goes into a box, which gets transferred to a bigger box, which gets transferred to downtown,’’ Bennett explained. He said sorting, verifying and counting all those early ballots took about a week.
All that would be different with voting centers.
In essence, each polling place would have electronic access to a list of every registered voter in the county, complete with an image of that person’s signature.
Someone who shows up would be identified by voting precinct. And the poll workers, using printers linked to computers, could then print out a ballot specific to that person, including the right legislative districts, county supervisors and school board members and bond votes.
What that means, Bennett said, is the ballot can be not only verified on site but also put into the machine that, properly programmed, will tabulate the vote. That would apply both to regular and early ballots.
Bennett said the system already is at work in Yuma and Yavapai counties. He said there are built-in safeguards, like having all the voting centers linked to ensure that individuals don’t show up at multiple locations.
KeithE4 posted at 7:02 am on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
Caption this photo: What?!?!? Obama won? #$@&! [beam]
DataMan posted at 7:20 am on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
Bennett's other option was to have his son grab a broom and to have that son poke voters in the rear if they take too long to vote.
This almost sounds like Bennett wants to do away with mailin ballots, doesn't it? Stats must show that mail in folks don't vote for Bennett......
GetAGripEVTrib posted at 9:43 am on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
What exactly is the difference between "any place" and "anywhere"?[unsure]
Arizona Willie posted at 11:31 am on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
We can put men on the moon, rovers on Mars, science labs in orbit --- but we can't make a hack proof voting machine.
We need lots of changes in the voting system.
Every potential voter should be required to prove they are a citizen before being allowed to register.
Voter registration cards should be bio-metric and carry not only the photo but a the data from a retinal scan.
Voting should be moved to a Saturday and made a two day event. Vote anytime that weekend.
Voters should be given a chit to be included with their tax return which entitles them to a $100 state income tax credit. That might induce some who are too lazy to make the effort to vote.
The entire country should use the same voting machine. Surely if we put our best minds on the job they could make one hack proof and use it everywhere. Ideally we should be able to come up with a hack proof Internet voting system --- if we really wanted to.
downtownresident posted at 1:13 pm on Wed, Nov 21, 2012.
I think mail-in ballots should be mandatory. No time wasted getting to the voting place, no time wasted waiting in line, no gas burned to drive to the polls, no postage to pay for using this process, just an easy, painless way to vote.
All it takes is a mailing address and 5 mintues to color in the arrows.
It's a no brainer. Speaking of "no-brainers" why didn't Ken think of that?[beam]
Leon Ceniceros posted at 3:06 am on Sat, Nov 24, 2012.
HERE WE GO AGAIN FOLKS....THE EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE USING A "HORRIBLE" PHOTO OF ANOTHER .........REPUBLICAN POLITICIAN.
DON'T BELIEVE ME....JUST LOOK AT THE "GLAMOUR PHOTO" OF OUR VERY OWN .......CONGRESSPERSON-ELECT.....SIMENA IN THIS VERY SAME EDITION.
COME ON EDITORS....................LEAVE THE LIBERAL AGENDA AT HOME WHERE IT BELONGS......THIS IS THE EVT NOT THE "NEWDIE TIMES"