Clerks: Supervising Elections Always Vital

It’s not often that town and city clerks are in the spotlight, as they were during the debate over the people’s veto question last Nov. 8 that restored Election Day voter registration. And it’s not a position they like to be in, for that matter.

“As an association, we don’t take positions on election laws because we’re responsible for conducting them,” said Deanna Hallett, Hallowell’s city clerk and current president of the Maine Town & City Clerks’ Association.

Voting in Maine, one of the nation’s highest turnout states, does pose significant challenges for clerks. But among the issues that emerged from an informal survey of clerks around the state, Election Day registration isn’t high on the list.

“It’s always gone very smoothly here,” said Lewiston’s Kathy Montejo. “I can’t say that we’ve ever encountered any problems.”

Like her counterparts, Montejo definitely plans ahead. Lewiston calls on a wide variety of city personnel to assist at polling places – public works, the fire department and assessing. “These are people who already deal with the public regularly, and they’re used to problem-solving as well,” she said.

Montejo holds a one-hour refresher course before each election on voting procedures. Using city employees allows Lewiston, for the most part, to avoid hiring additional staff for Election Day.

Wanda Thomas, town clerk in Orono, said that requiring voters to register at least two business days before elections wouldn’t have allowed significant checking by clerks – the stated rationale for LD 1376, the object of the people’s veto.

“Our procedure is to mail a postcard to the address the voter gives,” requiring them to respond to stay on the voter rolls. Two business days wouldn’t have made any difference, she said.

STUDENTS WELCOME

Nor do most clerks see registering college students – another focus of the LD 1376 debate – as presenting any special difficulties.

Montejo said that at least 1,000 students at Bates College are potentially eligible to vote in Lewiston and many do, with some registering on Election Day. They usually bring their student IDs, which are tamper-proof and include a photo. Names can be checked against the student directory and other sources.

“It’s been clear for many years that federal law allows them to vote here or in their home community,” she said. “The Secretary of State’s definition of domicile makes that clear.”

In Orono, Wanda Thomas said there’s a polling place on the University of Maine campus and she believe students “are encouraged to vote” if they haven’t cast ballots elsewhere. Student voters are serious. “Sometimes they have to stand in line for more than an hour,” she said.

Clerks did see advantages in another provision of LD 1376 that was not challenged – setting the same deadline, the Thursday prior to an election, for submission of absentee ballots. Late return of absentee ballots, often on Monday, can disrupt business at the clerk’s office.

“Depending on the election, we can have lines out the door,” Thomas said.

Since the Legislature changed the law by permitting voters to request absentee ballots without giving a reason, the number of absentee ballots has mushroomed, with clerks saying many people are using them mostly for convenience.

SMALL TOWN FAMILIARITY

In small towns like Peru, Election Day registration wasn’t much of an issue before or during the campaign, said Town Clerk Vera Parent. “You tend to know everybody anyway, and if someone is new to town, they’ve usually made a trip to the town office already,” she said.

While Parent understands the thinking behind the new deadline for absentee ballots, she thinks it could have been Friday rather than Thursday. “People realize at the last minute that they haven’t voted. Before they could stop in and get a ballot but now they can’t.”

It’s less likely that people will miss the deadline in future elections, Parent said. “They’ll grumble a bit, but once the word gets out, most of them will adjust.”

In Lewiston, Montejo said the city made a major effort to inform voters of the change in news releases, columns and public service announcement, all of which she said helped.

Several clerks noted that the law still provides for absentee ballots in emergencies, such as if a voter is hospitalized or unexpectedly has to leave town.

“We all felt it was helpful,” said South Portland’s Susan Mooney of the earlier deadline for absentee ballots. She also reports voters lining up on the Monday before Election Day. Because of the volume of ballots, her staff would frequently work until midnight on Monday, only to return at 5 a.m. Tuesday. Sue Mooney

She said, “It’s funny that people are willing to line up on Monday, when they vote more easily the following day.” As it is, tabulating absentee ballots takes most of Election Day. “We plow right through them, but it sometimes takes until 10 or 11 p.m. to finish.”

Mooney said that, while Election Day registration does require additional work, she doesn’t see it as a problem. “It’s all in the way you organize your efforts. It’s important to provide a good level of customer service to voters.”

A RECENT REGRET

She is one of the clerks who regrets, however, the failure of a constitutional amendment in 2009 that would have given clerks another week to certify petitions for statewide elections – most commonly, initiated questions or people’s vetoes. The amendment fell just short of passage; it was defeated by 25,000 votes, with 52 percent voting no.

Clerks were handicapped in getting the message out about the reasons for the proposal.

“We’re not allowed to advocate for changes in the law,” said Deanna Hallett, adding that next time perhaps a non-partisan group could provide the information.

At the time clerks were interviewed, most of them were hard at work on petitions from a group trying to create a ballot slot for an independent candidate by organizing a new political party. “We’ve seen a lot of those petitions and a lot of them came in at the deadline,” Mooney said.

While she doesn’t consider petitions a burden, they became so in neighboring Portland, whose former clerk, Linda Cohen, requested the bill that led to the proposed amendment.

“Portland has a lot of outdoor fairs and events, so it becomes a great place to gather signatures,” Mooney said. “It isn’t easy to meet the deadlines under those circumstances.”

Most clerks are fairly philosophical about petition certification, even though they have only five business days to check them – a labor-intensive task. In Bangor, Patti Dubois has four full-time and two part-time staff members. When petitions come in, that may be all they’re working on. (Dubois will begin duties as city clerk in Waterville this month.)

“We’re used to dropping everything and working on them until they’re done,” she said. “But yes, we could have used some more time.”

Vera Parent agrees, saying of petitioners: “They have their deadlines and we have ours. We just have to make it work.”

OTHER CONCERNS

Other election issues less familiar to voters are of concern to clerks.

Susan Mooney wonders about the federal requirement, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, that all polling places be equipped for voting by the disabled. The difficulty, she said, is that the equipment is expensive and cumbersome. It takes time to set up, and only a handful of voters use it. She thinks it should be sufficient to require that each municipality provide at least one place for the disabled to vote, not at every polling place.

It’s not that clerks don’t support the principle of voter access, she said. Her own daughter is blind, uses the voting equipment “but probably wouldn’t mind if it was just at one site,” Mooney said. “It’s important that they be able to vote without assistance, and without anyone knowing how they voted – just like any voter – but maybe we could find a better way.”

One change that could potentially ease the lines and reduce the workload caused by increased absentee ballots would be early voting, which is already in use in several other states. Instead of being issued a paper absentee ballot that is counted later, voters use a machine, in a secure location, any time during several weeks leading up to an election.

In Maine, the Bureau of Elections ran a pilot project using special voting machines the state provided and asked municipalities to volunteer for the experiment. Hallowell was one of them.

“Voters really loved it,” said Deanna Hallett. “They loved the convenience and also the privacy.”

Hallett said Julie Flynn, director of the Bureau of Elections, told her the state would attempt to expand early voting statewide, but there’s been no word of such an initiative.

In the meantime, the machines remain in Hallett’s office, awaiting a future assignment. She would welcome their return to use, saying, “We’d run every election that way if we could.”