Collin County to take part in vote center pilot program despite concerns

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

Ed Housewright writes in the Dallas Morning News that the Texas Secretary of State has approved Collin County to take part in a pilot program to implement election day vote centers (countywide polling places).

Housewright notes that:

Since the vote center concept has wide bi-partisan support in Collin County, why do "some Democrats" oppose the county's plan?

First of all, the pilot program is NOT just for the "upcoming election." Unless killed by the next legislature, the pilot is permanent. Sharon Rowe, the County Elections Administrator noted this in her application to the Texas secretary of State when she wrote, "In accordance with Texas House Bill 719, (81st Legislature, Regular Session), and as set forth in Ms. McGeehan's memorandum, the Countywide Election Precinct Program is permanent and not a temporary pilot."

Housewright adds that, "The Nov. 3 ballot won't include any hotly contested races, only constitutional amendments that have generated little discussion," and he goes on to quote County Commissioner Joe Jaynes, "It's the perfect election to try it on."

I was one of those who served on the Site Selection Committee and who wrote to the Secretary of State's (SOS) office urging rejection of the county's plan. In my letter, I wrote that, "I strongly believe that the submitted plan is an extremely poor template to be used as the precedent for planning the 2010 general election."

In a letter to the SOS office, co-signed by the NAACP representative and both Democratic Party reps, Democratic Party Chair Shawn Stevens echoed similar concerns, "We are of the strong view that a majority of the Collin County Commissioners' Court is more interested in having the possibility of cutting up to 50% of the polling locations in November 2010 than they are in actually making voting more convenient for all citizens that wish to vote. Given the low voter turnout traditionally seen in odd-year constitutional amendment elections, we are concerned that the first real test of the implementation of this legislation will not be in November 2009, but in November 2010."

Since the pilot program will likely be continued for the 2010 General Election, several members of the county's site selection committee had concerns on how the proposed polling places were chosen. Several members of the Site Selection Committee were frustrated at the lack of time and resources that were given to them. The committee was initially given a list of traditional precinct polling locations to use as the starer for selecting vote centers. In most cases, these locations were unsuitable for large scale vote centers, because of lack of parking, floor space, etc.

Justin Rynders, an attorney with Advocacy, Inc. served on the Site Selection Committee; he wrote to the SOS that, "Vote Center expert and Rice University Professor Bob Stein joined members of the public in being highly critical of the proposed list of 'Vote Center' locations in Collin County because, with the exemption of the Plano DART Rail stop, they were not places where people ordinarily travel. The list was made up mainly of former polling places. Members of the site selection committee advocated for use of grocery stores, shopping malls, and other places that were more in the spirit of a true Vote Center project, but none of those locations were able to be confirmed in such a tight time frame. Additionally, the tight time frame did not allow for sufficient site visits to fully analyze sufficiency of parking and other issues at sites that had not been used before."

In my letter to the SOS, I noted that, "With few exceptions, the committee did not have:

- data projecting the number of likely voters in each location

- information on the number of available parking places for each proposed location

- information or specifications on the floor space that would be made available for voting

- a working budgeted number of electronic poll books that would be available on election day"

It appeared that the county never really "got" the sense of what a Vote Center was. Instead they opted for what they knew, neighborhood polling places, but without the precinct residency restriction. The members of the committee were concerned that the goal would be to simply reduce the number of polling places, and therefore costs, without taking the steps needed to accomodate the larger turnout at these fewer locations.

The Commissioners Court has done little to allay the fears that the county's primary goal is to save money. Virtually all the debates at the court revolved around how much it cost to open and staff a polling place. In the opinion of some members of the committee, the county is trying to create so called "vote centers" on the cheap. A good example of this is the investment needed in purchasing laptop computers that will be used as electronic poll books at the vote centers.

In the vote center concept, since anyone can vote at any polling place, paper lists of registered voters can no longer be used. Instead, a central database of voters is maintained, and poll workers access that database using electronic pollbook software on computers that communicate with the central database. Collin County has used electronic poll books for years at the early voting locations.

The electronic poll books can be both a bottle neck and a source of failure. For example in 2006, Douglas County, Colorado voters waited over two hours to vote. The cause? An insufficient number of computers to look up voter records. In Denver, two and three hour waits were common as poll workers tried to process hundreds of voters with too few electronic poll books. A Denver City Councilman called the election day experience, "A total fiasco."

Denver officials complained that there were only "4 or 5" poll books at each vote center. According to testimony before the commissioners court, Collin County is only planning to place one electronic poll book in most of the vote centers. "A few" will get two. Larimer County, Colorado, which has successfully used vote centers for several years, typically has up to eight electronic poll books at each vote center.

Relying on one poll book invites bottlenecks and if the one computer or the network goes down, even temporarily, lines of frustrated voters will quickly form.

The County Commissioners appointed a bi-partisan Site Selection Committee of experienced election judges and interested organizations to review and recommend polling place locations.

The morning before the committee was to meet to approve its final choices, the county commissioners court voted 3 - 2 to direct the committee to limit the number of vote center locations to 57. Dissent came from Commissioner Hoagland, who believed that if the county appointed an expert committee, it ought to allow them the right to report what they thought best and from Commissioner Jaynes, who thought the committee was given insufficient time to do a proper job.

Because many members of the committee believed that they did not have the time nor the resources to select true vote centers, a 5 - 3 majority of the committee voted to approve 63 locations. In the majority were both Democratic Party reps, and representatives of LULAC, NAACP and Advocacy, Inc.

Opposed to the higher number of locations were both Republican Party reps and the Collin County representative.

I voted with the majority.

I really like the concept of vote centers, and I believe that when properly implemented, they can enhance voter turnout and the voter's experience. Unfortunately, I believe the county's plan provides a poor precedent for future elections. The site selection committee is still active and the members are still committed to helping the county create a system that is fair and that will work -- now and in future elections.