Voters registered in Delaware County may find it a bit easier to vote in the next election.
Delaware County Clerk Steve Craycraft, a Democrat, proposed establishing two satellite voting sites for the 2010 election at last week's meeting of the Delaware County Board of Elections. To pass the proposal, the three-member Election Board, on which Craycraft serves, must unanimously approve the measure. The board has seats for the county clerk, one Republican and one Democrat.
Delaware County voters can currently vote early at the Delaware County Clerk's office in downtown Muncie. The satellite voting sites would create other locations where this is allowed.
Craycraft said that more than 7,500 people voted early at the clerk's office in 2008, some waiting in line for two hours. He said his proposal of the two new sites could be used to gauge interest for further expansion.
Ball State University sophomore Josh Korkhouse, a psychology major, waited in line for more than an hour to vote at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center on election day last year. Korkhouse said an early voting site at Ball State would be good for all of Muncie because it would prevent Ball State students from tying up machines at polling sites near campus. He said he would have voted early if there had been a satellite site on campus last year.
Craycraft's proposal does not specify where the early voting sites would be, although a satellite voting site proposed last year would have been at Ball State University. Craycraft said he wants to determine whether the other members of the election board are interested in satellite sites before putting the time and effort into finding the locations.
Last year's proposal of a satellite voting site at Ball State caused some controversy before the election. Dozens of students attended the Sept. 17 meeting of the Election Board, where the initiative was rejected. The Republican member of the Board at the time, Bill Bruns, did not support the site. Bruns said the proposal was brought up too late to make a proper decision.
Kaye Whitehead, the current Republican member of the Board, said she preferred a "Vote Centers" concept to satellite voting sites.
The Vote Centers concept would replace the traditional precinct system in which each voter is assigned a specific polling place in his or her neighborhood. It would establish a smaller number of polling places that voters in the county could choose between. Vote Centers are not currently allowed under Indiana law, except for a few pilot counties. Whitehead said she would like to lobby the state to allow Vote Centers in Delaware County.
In the meantime, Whitehead, who has been a member of the Board for one meeting, said she needs more information before making a decision about satellite voting. She said she would consider the cost of satellite voting and the suitability of the locations selected, among other factors, before deciding.
The Delaware County Board of Elections will meet again Sept. 9 in the Delaware County Building. Craycraft said satellite voting will be discussed at that meeting but is not sure when a final decision will be made.
The 2010 election is particularly important because the legislators in the Indiana General Assembly will be tasked with drawing new district lines in response to the 2010 census.
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