3. Election/early voting pct - Laserfiche WebLink

CASS COUNTY GOVERNMENT .-. Auditor August 10, 2004 Board of County Commissioners Cass County Government 211 9th St. S. Fargo ND 58102 Michael Montiplaisir, CPA Re: General Election --- Early Voting Precinct 701-241-5601 Dear Commissioners: Treasurer Charlotte Sandvik 701-241-5611 Director of Equalization Frank Klein 701-241-5616 Box 2806 2ll Ninth Street South Fargo, North Dakota 58103 Fax 701-241-5728 www.casscountygov.com In the last legislative session we were successful in getting a provision added to the election statutes regarding an Early Voting Precinct. The Early Voting Precinct differs from Absentee Voting in that it provides an opportunity to involve the political party into that process and also allows for true second chance voting, something that is weak in the absentee process. In the absentee process the voter either mails, faxes, or physically delivers an application to the County Auditor to obtain a ballot. The County Auditor's Office enters the name of the voter into our election system and prints a return envelope for the ballot - this return envelope, a security envelope, and, in the case ofbaJlots that have to be mailed to the voter, a mailing label. When the voter returns the ballot we again enter that information into the election system. On Election Dayan Absentee Board opens all those envelopes containing ballots, initializes the baJlot, and puts them into the scanner. This whole process is a time consuming process both for our office and the Absentee Board. Time has become a big problem with absentee ballots. We have seen the number of absentee ballots increase each year as rules have been relaxed, polling places become farther from people homes or places of business, and political candidates and parties encourage people to vote absentee. Our office usually does little else in the two weeks before the election other than process the absentee requests that come in the mail and handle walk in traffic. The mail requests and walk in traffic are split about 50/50. To give you some idea of the numbers, we handle about 6,000- 7,000 absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to the General Election. The Early Voting Precinct must be authorized by the County Commission at least 60 days prior to the election and the precinct must be located in a government- controlled facility. There are some costs involved---we would have to do some extra programming on our election equipment and pay the election board. However, the costs would be manageable within the election budget. I would estimate the costs to be about $3,000. -----~~