Easier to vote early in Hall County

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Early voting has grown so popular that Hall County Election Commissioner Dale Baker is looking to add another site for it.

The Hall County experience may be used as a model for other Nebraska counties.

Baker wants a satellite voting site in northwest Grand Island for the 2010 election — and she may get financial help from the state to do so.

“I’ve agreed to try satellite voting here in Hall County for the primary” as a pilot project, Baker said. “It’s an alternative location to early voting other than here.”

“Here” is her downtown office on the first floor of the Hall County Administration Building.

Early voting by absentee ballot has long been allowed at the election commissioner’s office for people who had valid reasons for not voting on Election Day.

But in 1999, the Legislature removed the requirement of having a reason to vote early and simply allowed it for any registered voter.

The popularity of early voting has grown since — from a few hundred early ballots cast 15 years ago to 5,000 ballots in Hall County’s 2008 general election.

That’s 16 percent of Hall County voters.

“It’s getting to the point where we are so busy doing early voting here, we can’t get anything else done,” Baker said. “It would be advantageous to us to spread that out a little bit.”

Secretary of State John Gale, whose office oversees Nebraska elections, said a satellite site would help voters, too.

“The larger the community, the more distant people are from that (election commissioner’s office) location and the less convenient it is for them to go in and vote early,” Gale said.

Voting early is an option many voters want. It reduces lines on Election Day, Gale said.

“Satellite voting was an idea to allow some people to vote early and conveniently without having to wait until Election Day,” Gale said.

It came out of the Vote Nebraska Initiative task force in 2003. Gale said the decision was to pilot the new effort in Lincoln, but attempts to secure satellite voting sites in Lincoln that were acceptable to all parties for the 2006 election failed.

His office has since turned to a smaller community to pilot the project. He sees Hall County as the perfect fit.

But the plan has to be a good one that works well, Gale said. He wants to maintain voting in quiet, private, secure locations.

“It has never been our intention or policy to allow satellite voting in grocery stores or convenience stores or empty commercial premises,” Gale said. “Our objective is to have them in public facilities — schools, libraries, public offices, which are evenly distributed (in the community) and which have security, access (for the disabled) and have adequate parking and the capability of storing our equipment under secure circumstances.”

In order to get state financial help, Gale said, the satellite site should be open a couple of days a week — not every day, not all day, Gale said.

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