Panels: Early voting at satellite locations should stay consistent

• By MARSHA SHULER
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Nov 6, 2009 - Page: 12A

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Legislative panels overseeing state elections on Thursday rejected the idea of reducing the days of early voting at special satellite locations in Baton Rouge and Sulphur.

Meanwhile, the lawmakers signed off on a fifth satellite early voting location — this one in Orleans Parish.

Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said the Orleans site, at a voting machine warehouse, would be operational in time for the spring 2010 New Orleans mayor’s race.

The satellite locations are designed to bring early voting closer to where people live. They are in addition to regular early voting locations at parish registrar of voters offices, where people can go to vote in advance of elections.

The state House and Senate Governmental Affairs Committees quickly agreed to the addition of the Orleans satellite. It joins other remote locations at the State Archives in Baton Rouge, city hall in Sulphur, a vocational-technical school in Bogalusa and a state-run museum in Monroe.

The panel balked at Dardenne’s suggestion that early voting at satellite locations in Baton Rouge and Sulphur be scaled back from seven to four days in projected low-turnout elections. The seven days would have been retained for all congressional, governor’s and presidential elections under the proposal.

The reduced days already exist in Monroe and Bogalusa.

Dardenne said he was not particularly enthused about the idea but offered it in response to requests to come up with cost-cutting ideas.

“The aim of the game is to reduce some expenses,” Dardenne said.

Elections estimated a potential $10,000 to $15,000 savings in some years.

House committee chairman Rep. Rick Gallot, D-Ruston, said the savings — in a $30 billion state budget — may not be worth potential confusion of voters who are accustomed to having the satellite locations being open the entire week of early voting.

Dardenne said that was the debate that went on in his office.

“It would fly in the face of the consistency we are trying to create at those early voting sites,” Dardenne said.