[Mt-blind] FW: Mail-in Voting

[Daniel Burke]

I want to update folks on the Missoula situation on mail-in balloting for
the 2007 primary and general city elections.  There was a public hearing
last night at the Missoula City Council meeting.  Before that I talked with
County Clerk and Recorder Vickie Zeier fairly extensively abut the plans,
which the City Council passed with only one dissenting vote.

Basically, ballots are mailed out about 3 weeks prior to election day.  They
can be voted and mailed back, or dropped off on election day.  On election
day, there will be about 6 drop-off places around Missoula, and there will
be AutoMARK machines there and poll judges, so blind voters can use the
machines to vote privately and independently.  In addition, all ballots will
be placed back into their envelopes and signed, and all will be counted at
the same time in the County Courthouse.  

Thus, this plan provides for use of the nonvisually accessible voting
machines for the blind.  It also ensures that we won't be voting in a
segregated location of blind voters only, or that our ballots could be a
distinctly identifiable  group of votes, segregated from other voters.

The one down side, of course, is the limited number of drop-off sites as
compared to the total number of polling places we've had in previous general
elections.  Transportation could be an issue for blind voters.

One other thing I learned, and this is a correction to what I said in my
reply to Jim Aldrich earlier -- the nonvisually accessible machines are
required to be used only in federal primary and general elections under the
Help America Vote Act.  In other words, local government or school elections
are not required to use those machines.  Below is an e-mail from Vickie
Zeier on this subject.

So, in the Legislature there is a bill to study the feasibility of mail-in
ballots for statewide elections.  We will need to be a part of that study
process.  It occurs to me that we should be pushing for use of AutoMARK
machines in local elections regardless, and we will want to be sure that
enough drop-off polling places are out there so we can get to them.  I bet
we talk about this more at our convention in September! (grin)

Dan
*****

-----Original Message-----
From: Vickie Zeier [mailto:vzeier at co.missoula.mt.us] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:13 AM
To: Daniel Burke
Subject: RE: Mail-in Voting

Thanks!  Just want you to know that I am committed to using the Automarks in
all elections with the exception of the School Elections.  School Elections
only have 20 days from the time I receive the ballot language until we hold
the election, there isn't time to get the automarks programmed and tested
before the election.

Talk to you soon!  Vickie

Vickie M. Zeier
Missoula County Clerk & Recorder/Treasurer
vzeier at co.missoula, mt.us

>>> "Daniel Burke" <burke.dall at gmail.com> 4/17/2007 7:36 AM >>>
Thanks again Vickie for taking the time to explain the plan last night - and
you did a great job presenting to the Council!

One other thing I forgot to say last night - you should be commended to your
commitment to continue using the AutoMarks in local elections, even though
they're not required under HAVA.

Best,

Dan

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