The Independent View: Early Voting in New York

Thanks to Basllot Access News for this post.

Democrats in the state legislature are pushing to institute early voting in New York, but local elections officials say it would be costly and difficult to implement.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, has introduced legislation to establish early voting in New York, legislation he said will be a priority in the legislative session that opens Wednesday. Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Westchester County, has introduced companion legislation in the state Senate.

Under the proposed legislation, each county would be required to operate at least five polling places from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, including Saturdays and Sundays, for 14 days before any general election and seven days before a primary or special election.

New York’s strict election laws, however, makes early voting harder to implement:

1. Sign-in books used at polling sites are printed a week or two in advance, there would be no way to verify who voted early, and difficult to prevent people from voting twice, under current laws.

2. Counties would have to buy additional voting machines, because there wouldn’t be enough time before Election Day to read out and reset machines used for early voting.

3. Counties would have the expense of paying election inspectors. Election inspectors are paid $10 per hour, and at least four inspectors are required at each polling site. Based on those figures, it would cost $30,800 for a general election, and half that for a primary or special election.

Some elections commissioner, said the goals of early voting could be met by expanding the absentee ballot voting system.

In 2009, legislation to authorize “no-excuse absentee voting” did not pass, it would have allowed any registered voter to vote by absentee ballot, not just those who are out of the area, disabled or in jail. Part of the reason the legislation did not pass was lawyers for the Assembly determined it would require a constitutional amendment. Other lawyers say early voting would not require a constitutional amendment.

Some say, it would seem that a system involving people casting their ballots early at boards of elections offices, like people casting absentee ballots, might work.

Whatever system is used will have to change the current election laws and lawyers will have to work out the constitutional issue.

UPDATE
Today, Governor Cuomo give his State of the State report. This is his Government Reform section:

1. Create Disclose NY to Increase Disclosures of Contributions - Any and all covered contributions to a PAC, lobbying 501(c)(3), other 501(c) organization, political committee, or political party over $500 should be disclosed within 48 hours, and within 24 hours near Election Day. The laws should be amended to expand and clarify the types of political communications that must be reported to and filed with the Board of Elections by candidates, labor organizations, corporations, political committees, and other entities as well as the contributions made to the entities that paid for such communications.

2. Campaign Finance Reform is Imperative for Rebuilding Trust in Government - New York City’s existing public financing matching system, the Campaign Finance Program (CFP) administered by the Campaign Finance Board, provides the ideal model for statewide reform. This program leverages contributions raised from New York City residents to provide public matching funds for candidates. The City’s public financing program enjoys robust participation by serious, credible candidates. Most notably, public financing has helped to increase the number of contributors overall—and especially the number of small donors—in New York City elections.

3. Early Voting - see above.

4. Redesign the Ballot formats.

5. More enforcement and higher penalties for campaign violations.

Will blog more about the changes as they go through the legislature process.