Harris County keeps considering vote centers

Perhaps one of these days they will move forward on this.

vote-button

Seeking to making voting easier on Election Day, Harris County officials are considering shifting to a system that would allow voters to cast ballots at any county polling place rather than only at their neighborhood precinct.

These so-called “vote centers,” modeled after the countywide polling sites used during early voting, have been implemented by at least 33 Texas counties, including neighboring Fort Bend, since the state Legislature authorized a pilot program in 2005.

Four of the five members of Harris County’s Commissioners Court said they support the idea, citing a desire to make voting more convenient.

“As a concept, it makes all the sense in the world,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said.

[…]

Yet despite broad interest in vote centers, Emmett and Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart cited technological and logistical impediments to making the change soon in Harris County under current state law, which does not allow for adjustments based on county size.

Counties adopting vote centers for the first time are required retain 65 percent of the number of precinct polling places they otherwise would have used for that election. In subsequent elections, they must keep half the precinct polling sites.

That means if Harris County had transitioned to countywide polling places for November’s general election, it would have needed to open 492 vote centers in place of 757 precinct polling locations.

By contrast, the county of 4.4 million residents offered just 41 early voting sites.

“That’s totally illogical. That defeats the whole purpose,” Emmett said.

Explaining that he does not think Harris County would be able to participate without a legislative change allowing them to offer fewer voting centers, Emmett proposed opening 100 countywide polling places for the two weeks leading up to and through Election Day.

“That would make it easier for people to vote,” Emmett said.

See here for previous blogging on this subject. As I’ve said before, I think this is a good idea, and by now we have enough examples, including those of our neighbors in Fort Bend and Galveston, to see how this works. If we need a new law to allow for a more realistic number of vote centers, then let’s crank up the machinery to help make that happen in 2017. While we’re at it, let’s try again for online voter registration, too. Whatever we can do to improve the voting process in Harris County.

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3 Responses to Harris County keeps considering vote centers

  1. Valerie says:

    I believe Brazoria County does this as well. I recently moved to Pearland and voted in my first election here, and on election day I was able to go to any voting center I wanted. It was very nice.

  2. Sandi says:

    The point of local polling locations is that hopefully the workers and officials know the voters there.

    I don’t like the photo ID laws in place now, but since we do have them there isn’t any reason not to move away from the current model and towards something more citywide.

  3. If we want online voter registration…

    Get rid of mike sullivan.

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