North Dakota Vote Centers - Bad Idea for Election Reform

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

The intentions are good, but the results are bad

3/15/07 State elections trending to voting centers

By DALE WETZEL Bismark Tribune
North Dakota's Senate voted 44-0 on Wednesday to give final legislative approval to a bill that allows counties to establish the centers. The measure, which was introduced at the behest of Secretary of State Al Jaeger, now goes to Gov. John Hoeven for his review.

Voting centers could have ballots for some or all of a county's precincts and voters will still get a ballot that is specific to their precinct, Nelson said. The option could help eliminate voters' confusion about where they should go to vote, she said.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/03/15/news/state/130360.txt

Bad ideas like this keep spreading, so I finally wrote up a paper on it.

Excerpt:

"Super Precincts or Vote Centers can become a poll-tax for the elderly, disabled, minority and rural voters – because of the additional travel, time, missed work or physical stress of waiting in long lines to vote. Voters can no longer walk or travel a short distance to vote. For disabled, the voting location is no longer in a familiar neighborhood, and may be in a busy crowded facility. Election officials have to rely more on expensive and error prone technologies such as electronic poll books and touch-screen voting machines. When equipment crashes or fails to work, greater numbers of voters are simultaneously disenfranchised. Denial of service attacks affect larger portions of voters. (More eggs in one basket) "

Read the full paper here -
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Vote_Centers_or_Super_Precincts.pdf
or
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Vote_Centers_or_Super_Precincts.doc