Experts not surprised by Denver woes

Voting centers and electronic machines too much, one says

Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 9, 2006 at midnight

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Denver became the largest city in the nation to attempt to use central voting centers instead of traditional precinct polling places on Election Day.

Not that it will be bragging about it anytime soon.

Election experts around the country were watching Denver on Tuesday to see how things went. The "catastrophic" day, as the mayor put it, did not exactly surprise them.

"Is it a surprise? No," said Kimball Brace, president of Washington, D.C.-based Election Data Services, a consulting firm specializing in election administration.

"Is it unfortunate? Yes."

Brace said he talked to top Denver Election Commission officials Tuesday afternoon after hearing about computer problems causing voter lines to snake out to the sidewalks.

"Our advice is always be careful that you're not biting off too much," Brace said.

"Denver might have bitten off too much at once with the new voting centers and new electronic voting machines. When you throw that together all at the same time, it's not surprising what happened."

It will take weeks to fully understand what went wrong, said Robert Stein, dean of Rice University's School of Social Sciences who has studied Colorado's vote center trend and has met with Denver election officials in the past.

"I was shocked when I heard Denver was adopting this," Stein said.

Stein said the clerk in Harris County, Texas, where he lives, said vote centers wouldn't work in large cities because it would be too difficult to bring large numbers of people to central locations to vote.

But Stein is not convinced it is impossible.

"It's not clear it has failed," he said.

Both Brace and Stein said a history of difficulties with the Denver Election Commission put the city at a disadvantage to begin with.

"I don't want to be judgmental, but (the Denver Election Commission) has had problems," Stein said.

Still, he added the commissioners seemed "really conscientious" about making the plan work.

"I was impressed," Stein said of some of the hearings the commission held to gather public input on the plan.

"Still, you know what they say about the best laid plans. At some point, you just need a czar (who) will make decisions."

Election decisions in Denver are made by a three-person team: a county clerk appointed by the mayor and two part-time elected commissioners.

"There's no question in my mind that makes a difference," said Larimer County Clerk Scott Doyle, who was the first clerk in the nation to use vote centers.

"Up here, I get to make the calls. It would be difficult to have to do everything by committee."

Denver election officials also were operating on insufficient information, Stein said.

"They had information about Larimer County, and they had our paper," which detailed how vote centers actually increase voter turnout, he said.

Stein said Denver is one of 20 counties in the state using vote centers.

The Denver Election Commission replaced its 292 neighborhood polling places with 55 vote centers this year because vote centers generally cost less, require fewer election judges and are more accessible to voters with disabilities, as required by the Help America Vote Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Also, as Stein's study of Larimer County showed, they appear to increase voter turnout over time.

Two counties in Indiana have pilot programs using vote centers.

Other states considering the change include Illinois, Florida, Texas, Michigan and North Carolina.

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