INDIANAPOLIS | Bills that would expand vote centers and allow online voter registration -- proposals supporters hope will make voting more convenient and could bring more people to the polls -- are on their way to the governor's desk after being approved by the General Assembly.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Indiana's chief election officer, said both concepts are 21st century changes that are past due.
"We use technology in every one of our other transactions in life," Rokita said. "For some reason, we're afraid to use technology in our most sacred civic transaction -- voting."
Gov. Mitch Daniels said this week that he hasn't yet looked at the election bills to determine whether he'll sign them into law.
One of the election bills would allow people with valid driver's licenses or state identification to file voter registration forms over the Internet. Currently, citizens can download registration applications online, but they must print and mail the forms.
Another bill would allow vote centers in Johnson County, which lost more than 400 voting machines in June flooding. Floodwaters climbed as high as six feet inside the office building where the electronic devices were stored.
"They were floating," said county Clerk Jill Jackson. "We opened them up and water just poured out of them."
Johnson County hopes to save up to $2 million if it becomes a vote center county, meaning residents there could vote at centralized locations spread around the county instead of at their individual precincts. The county would only need to buy an estimated 200 voting machines, Jackson said, and would further cut costs by using only about 150 poll workers instead of the more than 500 required under the current system.
"We really hope it saves the taxpayers a lot of money," Jackson said. "We're sure that it'll be more convenient."
Cass, Tippecanoe and Wayne counties already use vote centers as part of a state pilot program. Residents there can cast ballots at places like a church near their house, a downtown building on their lunch break or a supermarket before grocery shopping.
Rokita hopes lawmakers will eventually give all Indiana counties the option of using vote centers.
"While the General Assembly took another step forward in the evolution toward a more modern elections system, we are still only going to have vote centers in four counties," Rokita said. "We have 88 counties to go."
The bill would also require election officials to tell people casting provisional ballots -- often because they lack required identification or have a name that doesn't appear in the poll book -- why their ballot was treated as provisional and the steps they must take to have the ballot counted.
Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes, said voters who cast provisional ballots often don't know what to do next, and that the bill would help them make sure their votes count. People casting provisional ballots have 10 days after the election to present the proof that their vote should count.
But Rokita doesn't support part of the bill that would allow candidates and county political party chairmen to find out the names and addresses of people who cast provisional ballots. He said candidates could continue to hound voters for 10 days after the election.
"Where's the sense that the campaign is over?" Rokita said. "People should be left alone after the election."
The vote center bill could also prevent future partisan fights such as one last fall in Lake County over satellite voting locations. Current law requires county election boards to unanimously approve satellite vote centers, where people can cast absentee ballots before an election, but the bill would only require a majority of the board.
Lake County Republicans fought last year to close three early voting locations in Gary, East Chicago and Hammond, saying the Democrat-controlled election board had approved them in violation of state law. A special judge and the Indiana Court of Appeals said the centers could remain open.
