Public hearing scheduled for Countywide Vote Center plan in Collin County

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

Last month, The Collin County Observer wrote about proposed Countywide poll places. Countywide polling places, or Vote Centers, operate similar to our early voting locations -- any county voter can vote in any of the Vote Centers on election day. In many cases, these Vote Centers will replace the normal neighborhood poll locations traditionally used on election day. In fact, the law allows the county to use Vote Centers to eliminate up to 35% of the neighborhood precinct polls.

The Commissioners court has scheduled a public hearing today to determine if the county will apply to participate in the test program. If the court, as expected, approves going forward, it will then appoint a 'site selection committee' that will write a detailed plan for consideration by the Texas Secretary of State and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

The site selection committee will have less than a month to write a plan that will potentially eliminate 50% of neighborhood polling places -- replacing them with "Vote Centers" where any voter in the county can vote. Detailed plans must be submitted to the Secretary of State before August 15.

The County staff is proposing a system similar to that used in Lubbock County in 2006 and 2008. The Lubbock 2006 plan, while being touted by local officials as a success, was criticized by area Democrats who wrote a report showing reduced voter turnout in minority and low income demographics.

Collin County tried this before in 2006, but the staff's proposed plan was so badly flawed (PDF) that both the Republican and Democratic Party chairs asked that it be withdrawn.

This attempt looks to be no better. Lubbock area people involved with the site selection process told us that it took them over two months to draft a plan in 2008 that avoided the problems of 2006. Collin County has about three weeks to select the committee, draw up the plan, and write a report for the commissioners to approve.

To this author, it would seem that the county is once again proposing a "half-assed" process.

Given the time constraints and budget pressure to save money, I have real concerns that the committee can draft a plan that will not negatively impact voter turnout -- especially for low income, minority, elderly and disabled voters.

Some concerns:

* Will the county invest in advertising and mailings to inform the voters of the changes?

* Will the county preserve the local precinct polling places in low income and minority neighborhoods where getting to a distant polling place could be a problem?

* Will there be an adequate number of Vote Centers? (The 2006 plan badly underestimated the number of centers needed. For example, there was only one polling place in the entire city of Frisco.)

* Will the Vote Center be large enough, staffed enough and have sufficient parking for the anticipated turnout? (The 2006 plan mostly relied on schools and government offices where there was insufficient parking.)

* Will the County invest in a secure, dedicated data connection between the County servers holding the voter registration database and the Vote Centers?

* Will the site selection committee be made up of representatives from both political parties and community groups?