Deprecinctification of America: 285 Precincts Replaced by 47 Vote Centers

[Wilms]

How else will you pay for all the voting equipment, avoid making polling places accessible, and disenfranchise voters? :shrug:

Thanks to sfexpat2000 for posting this on todays

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x424434

Please, recommend the Daily Thread.

Precincts to be supplanted by 47 vote centers

April 20, 2006.

DENVER

The Denver Election Commission has selected 47 vote centers for this year's statewide elections, replacing the century-old precinct polling sites and allowing voters to cast their ballot at any vote center across the city.

Election officials have estimated that the consolidation from 285 precinct polls to the centers will save $3.4 million.

The centers are expected to be more convenient for voters because there is no way for them to go to the "wrong precinct," said Alton Dillard, the commission's interim executive director. Each location will have from eight to 20 or more voting machines.

With just under four months to go until the August primary, Dillard said the agency is well-positioned to complete installation of the high- speed computer lines and other logistical planning for the 47 vote centers.

The city will conduct ongoing public education programs to alert Denver's 360,000 voters about the change, including a vote center notification that was included with an absentee ballot application mailed to all voters last week.

snip/that's it

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4636095,00.html

[rumpel]

1. "High speed computer lines" as in internet connection ? Network?

[Wilms]

2. Either way, it's probably hackable. n/t

[IndyOp]

6. Probably? If it runs software, has memory cards and/or is connected to

any network - it is 'fraudable' - hacking implies an assault on an otherwise reliable, secure system and I don't want to imply that any of these systems are reliable or secure.

:(

[Amaryllis]

3. Curses. Foiled again.

[autorank]

4. Election fraud is more than just machines.

This is a nice form of elderly and poor voter disenfranchisement. Who cares about $3.4 million in savings when there are billions stolen by the crooks who get elected. One more sign of utter contempt toward the people by elected and bureaucratic officials. They think we're too stupid to figure this out, too weak to resist...all because they know that the VERY BEST PARTNER IN CRIME anyone could ever have is corporate media - CM. But I've got news for them, we didn't need CM to get where we are on Iraq. When is the last multi day story on Iraq? We didn't need CM to get the word out on global warming. Sure it takes time but so what, reform movements operate over years, decades. When the "clincher" hits on election fraud, we won't need that long. People already know it's a "rigged game", they despise their elected officials, and they're ready to throw the bums out.

Just watch 06 unfold. It's going to get ugly and the quisling, get along, go along, Senate brotherhood, I'm bipartisan tactics of the "distinguished gentleman from..." is down the tubes. Nobody cares about your "statesmanship" when the house is burning to the ground.

[Kip Humphrey]

5. The new poll tax: must have a car to vote

Houston tried vote centers during early voting in 2004, only 2 of which were on public bus lines... Resulted in class disenfranchisement as poor citizens were denied access to early voting. Put plainly:
in Houston, Vote Centers equated to "we don't need no stinkin' poor folk voting in our elections!"

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. does anyone have any data on this?

I just heard a conference paper yesterday afternoon that said that when a suburban Colorado county went to vote centers, it increased its turnout by several points compared to a similar county elsewhere in the state. I haven't read the paper yet.

I don't see how one could say whether "deprecinctification" inherently makes it easier or harder to vote -- it depends on implementation.

[Wilms]

8. Let us know if the paper suggest why there was an increase.

Seems fairly obvious, from the standpoint of transportation, that it would make it harder to vote.

OTOH, OTOH, it could be explained if the undeprecinctified schema included polling places that often changed (my old neighborhood was doing that), or were inaccessible.

But let's ask if the increase reported was due to another factor (ie: voter education, hotly contested races, etc.).

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. ah, well, start with a low-density 'burban county

(at least, I think so from what I gleaned in the presentation) -- so many voters are commuting to work. Thus, if the centers are well placed and have lots of parking and so forth, it could well be easier to vote at one of them, than to find your own precinct and vote there. (I think some people are put off by the requirement to find the right polling place even if it isn't that hard.) Also, with more machines per voting place, there is less chance of getting stuck in the Line From Hell -- it tends to even out the utilization of machines.

According to the presentation, the analysis compares two similar counties over time, prior to the change and after the change -- so no factor unique to a single election is likely to explain the change. But the paper isn't posted yet, so I will reserve judgment.

And of course no matter how good the paper is, it wouldn't follow that voter centers would always increase turnout -- nor would all the security issues go away. But it would shed a different light on the possible motives of election officials who are interested in making this change.

[Wilms]

15. Funny. I had the exact opposite idea.

High-density urban. It is Denver. They might have a mix of the two.

It's the poor, and the elderly I'm concerned with.

I can think of other reasons including making it easier to staff. It might take less poll workers to do it this way. Plus Poll Workers are a bit harder to find where there are DRE's. Apparently, the older generation who often do the work, are not comfortable dealing with the technology.

[OnTheOtherHand]

17. I agree -- I think we are talking past each other a bit

I have never been in Denver. The paper was about Larimer County, which has much lower density.

I don't really know how vote centers might work in Denver, but I can't imagine them in Brooklyn. The main rationale for vote centers as a voter convenience seems to be that they are already in a car. HAVA will put on prssure for jurisdictions to move to vote centers even where the voters are not well served by them.

Excellent link from the Willits News -- that's a keeper.

[Wilms]

18. Stein and Vonnahme

I'll try to keep my eye out for Stein and Vonnahme, "Election Day Voter Centers and Voter Turnout", guessing that's the paper you referred to.

Here, http://earlyvote.blogspot.com/2006/04/consolidating-polling-places-in-maine.html refers to papers cautioning on the implemention of precinct reductions.

"In a series of papers analyzing recent elections in California, Brady and McNulty show that changes in precinct locations, independent of other effects on turnout, may increase absentee balloting and decrease overall turnout. They show this by comparing turnout in LA County in 2002, and compare it to the recall election of 2003."

http://polmeth04.stanford.edu/Papers/heb0727.pdf

[Wilms]

16. But I never really thought I'd see a BoE state it so eloquently.

Of course, this doesn't guarantee low turnout/disenfranchisement of the transportation challenged, however...

Wharff announces changes to voting process

By Mike ADair/TWN Staff Writer

April 21, 2006

snip

All of these changes have been made during a massive reorganization of the countys voter precincts, a reorganization that saw the number of precincts cut from the previous 65 to the current 37.

These changes have been made to insure that all voters will vote in polling places that meet strict federal accessibility requirements, Wharff said. Also, she said, another reason is to successfully deploy one Touchscreen voting machine per polling location, in order to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.

A third reason is to make it easier on Wharffs office and elections staff, which previously had to draw up and properly distribute numerous ballot types for the same physical area, in order to accommodate all the overlapping and quasi-overlapping special districts such as water districts and fire protection districts. For example, in the last election, we had some precincts in Ukiah Valley that had as many as seven different kinds of ballots, to accommodate all the special districts.

As a result of this, many precincts in the county now are larger, and a few are smaller.

Voters in precincts with fewer than 250 people will be mailed their ballots through the mails, and registered voters in those districts will be asked to vote by mail.

snip

http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253~26908~3295282,00.html

[glitch]

9. Despicable The election officials installing these should be indicted nt

[Land Shark]

10. Is this DREs, or are they dropping precinct organization?

DREs allow this kind of stuff and early voting because they can be programmed for many different ballot styles. Are they dropping the precincts in terms of reporting results that way? If so, that makes election results discontinuous for purpose of comparing historical performance making it easier to steal elections.

Read: "well last year we got a great turnout from methodists, resulting in a methodist getting elected, this year we got a great turnout from nascar fans, resulting in the election of a nascar dad" No one will be readily able to question it with bizarred precinct results, it's all in the same pot of soup.

[Wilms]

14. My guess is the precinct maps will stay the same.

It just that they are asking people from many precincts to go to a shared polling place.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. they claim it helps turnout

They claim it helps voter turnout, but they
"manage" their information.


They compare turnout of a presidential election to the
turnout for congressional primaries, for example, and
of course there is a huge difference.

It is a dumb idea that helps sell DRES.

[iconoclastNYC]

13. The question is : Do the Colorado dems have a plan

To mitigate the downside to this?