A constitutional amendment to permit early voting easily passed the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday. But state and local election officials continued to oppose a move back to paper ballots, partly because it would make early voting more difficult to conduct.
Early voting already had been approved by the legislature in 2005 and 2006, despite a veto by Gov. Robert Ehrlich, but it was overturned as unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals. The constitutional amendment sponsored by House Speaker Michael Busch and other House leaders was designed to cure that problem.
But state Elections Administrator Linda Lamone said early voting, as passed before, would be nearly impossible to conduct at a few designated polling sites in each county if some kind of paper ballot is required. In Prince George?s County, for instance, overlapping legislative, council, congressional and school board districts produce more than 100 different styles of paper absentee ballots, she said. But these districts are easily accommodated by the electronic voting machines used in the last two elections.
Sara Harris, representing the Maryland Association of Election Officials, told a Senate committee that they opposed any move to voter verified paper ballots before the 2010 elections. Harris, who works for the Montgomery County elections board, said the local administrators opposed the move for the 2008 presidential election because of its costs, timing and problems with voter service and training of election judges.
She said the new voting equipment over the last three years have increased costs by $1 million a year in Montgomery County, the state?s largest jurisdiction.
Harris and Lamone also said despite overwhelming support in the legislature, the push for a voter-verified paper trail may not comply with expected new federal regulations under the Help America Vote Act.
Harris said that local election boards need at least six months before an election to implement any kind of new system.
“Election Day must not be another Beta-test day” for a new system, Harris said. “There are not enough trained professionals.”
Lamone continued to press for a compromise solution, where any voter could choose to use paper ballots at their home precincts.
