Democracy in Aisle 3? Maybe

LINCOLN — Partisan bickering three years ago killed a proposal to let Nebraska voters cast early ballots at grocery stores, libraries and other nontraditional locations.

Now officials are making another run at the idea.

If all goes well, Hall County voters could become the guinea pigs for “satellite voting” next year.

County Election Commissioner Dale Baker said she hopes to have the program available for the 2010 primary election.

“I'm more than anxious to try something new — anything to make it easier for people to cast their ballots,” she said. “This is one step closer to making it that much easier.”

Satellite voting gives people another option for voting early.

Instead of having to request a ballot by mail or go to the county election office, they can go to a specially designated location to cast an early ballot.

At the site, election officials can check a voter's registration by computer. They can then print out the appropriate ballot or have all ballots from county precincts available.

Three poll workers of differing parties would staff the sites, similar to the staffing at voting sites on Election Day.

“It's Election Day, just a different day, or early voting, just a different location,” Baker said.

Casting early ballots outside election offices is nothing new for Iowa.

State law there has allowed the practice for decades. It started taking off in the late 1980s, with the growing popularity of absentee ballots, said Linda Langenberg, Iowa's deputy secretary of state.

“They're quite a bit of work, and they're expensive, but the voters really love it,” she said.

Langenberg said Iowa's larger counties offer a lot of satellite sites, which can be, for example, public libraries and shopping malls. Some smaller counties also have sites.

While she was an election official in Linn County, she said, she used Hy-Vee grocery stores as satellite voting sites, with privacy at times provided by stacked cases of pop.

The proposal for satellite voting in Nebraska came from the Vote Nebraska Initiative, a commission created in 2003 to look at boosting voter turnout and citizens' political interest.

State lawmakers authorized the idea in 2005, and Lancaster County planned to be a test county the following year.

But the plans foundered and state officials abandoned efforts to get rules and regulations approved when the state political parties could not agree on potential satellite locations.

The Secretary of State's Office will try again today, taking testimony on a new set of proposed rules and regulations at a 10 a.m. hearing in the State Capitol.

Jim Rogers, executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said the party is interested in ways to increase voter participation and hopes to find agreement with Republicans about appropriate satellite voting locations. GOP officials did not return a message seeking comment.

But Lancaster County won't be involved with testing the program this time. “I'm just not going to go down that road again,” Election Commissioner Dave Shively said.

Douglas County Election Commissioner Dave Phipps also has rejected satellite voting, saying it would be difficult to deal with the hundreds of ballot combinations used in the county.

Sarpy County Election Commissioner Kay Forslund said she is waiting to see how the Hall County test works.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com

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