There Has Got To Be A Better Way - Election Day Looking To Be Chaotic

The way election district and precinct lines are drawn in Indiana needs some serious consideration for coordination.  It would serve the public interest in less voter confusion and far lower costs to run the elections themselves.

In a previous blog entry ("New Precincts and Proposed New Council Districts") I mentioned how the new precinct lines in Marion County were drawn AFTER the various Township Boards drew their districts.  The Boards had to redraw the districts after the 2010 census results were available, but prior to November 8, 2011, to give ample time before their election year, which is 2012.

2012, mind you, is also the Presidential Election year, which always attracts the best voter turnout.

For those of us who man the polling sites, these things matter because the greater the number of ballots, the greater the chance for confusion and voters getting the wrong ballot. 

Even if there were minimum numbers of ballots in every precinct, this year will be confusing to voters because many will be voting in a new location.  Most voters do not remember their precinct number, just their voting place.  So, the fact that the precinct number changed is of little concern.  But, where those lines were moved, then the expatriated voters must find their way to a new poll.  Hopefully the Election Board or the Voter Registration or whoever is responsible for such things, will notify everyone of their new precinct and polling location.  This  is expensive, of course.  But, there are more costs to pile up this election year.

At every Primary you have at least 4 ballots.  You have the Democratic Party ballot and the Republican Party ballot.  In addition, anyone who will be 18 years old by the day of the General Election in November, but who on Primary Day is still 17, does have the right to vote.  But, they vote on the '17 year-old' ballot, which lists only those races that will not be finally decided until November.  Thus you have a 17 year-old Democratic Party ballot and a 17 year-old Republican ballot.  So, at the least encumbered precinct on Primary Election Day, you have at least 4 ballots.

At every General Election you drop to 1 ballot in the least encumber precinct.

With that stage set, lets look at the complexity caused by the re-drawing of precinct lines without consideration of the Township Board districts, which had already been set.

Here in Decatur Township, we now have 16 precincts and 7 Township Board districts.  This morning I sat and compared both maps with an eye toward how many Board districts were represented in each precinct. 

Of 16 total precincts, 8 will have only one Board district election, 6 will have two Board district elections, and 2 will have three Board district elections.

So, for 8 of our precincts, there will be 4 ballots on Primary Election Day and 1 ballot on General Election Day.

For 6 of our precincts, there will be 8 ballots for the Primary and 2 ballots for the General.

For 2 of our precincts, there will be 12 ballots for the Primary and 3 ballots for the General.

Now, that is a lot of different ballots and a lot of cost to print and properly distribute the assortment.  I do not know how the voting machine programing costs fluctuate according to the number of different ballots in one precinct.

During the budget hearings for the Election Board, the City Controller's office argued that the Election Board did not need as much money as they asked for, and so the Election Board's requested budget was cut by some $400,000.  It was stated that the law requires the City to pay whatever expenses are incurred for elections, regardless of what was budgeted.  The Election Board's requested budget was calculated from previous Presidential election year expenses, and could not take into account the massive re-precincting that would be announced in November.  (Yet another reason why then-Council President Ryan Vaughn should have come clean and let everyone know he had already let a contract to re-precinct.)

So we have a self-inflicted situation where the uncoordinated re-precincting and re-districting will lead directly to massive numbers of ballot configurations, amplified costs to organize and run the 2012 elections, and what I think will be voter confusion and frustration the likes of which we haven't seen in decades.

There has got to be a better way and the public deserves some consideration by those in power as to how to fix this so it does not happen again.

Apology To Readers - Confusion Reigning On Genesis Of Re-Precincting

I must apologize to my readers for substantial error in my post yesterday.  I said that the Mayor did not have to correct errors in the precincts due to the State Legislature's creation of its new districts.  That is not entirely true.

I have been trying to track down the actual genesis of the problem, but, at this point all I can say is that the State Legislature, through HB 1601, did require the Mayor Ballard to review census data on all precincts sent to him by the State's Election Division, and either submit corrections to the precincts affected, or re-precinct entirely.  The bill anticipated little cost to the County, with the Legislative Services Agency stating "Explanation of Local Expenditures: County Executives- County executives should require only a minimal increase in administrative time to send the ED the information required by the bill", in its Fiscal Impact Analysis.

While I am not able to say if it was poorly drafted Legislative districts or Congressional districts (which did use census blocks instead of precincts in their legal descriptions) (see IC 2-1-12, IC 2-1-13, and IC 3-3-5, respectively) it is certain that some action regarding the evaluation and correction of precinct boundaries was legally required of Mayor Ballard.

New Precincts and Proposed New Council Districts

I've had a bundle of information provided to me about new precinct and Council district maps in the last 24 hours.  Short story - the political parties are girding for battle and the only ones who aren't getting their fair say appears to be the public and the taxpayers.

Lets start with the new precinct maps.  The Mayor of Indianapolis has the sole authority to draw precinct boundaries.  According to City-County Council President, Ryan Vaughn,  Mayor Greg Ballard requested that Vaughn get the precincts drawn up on behalf of the Mayor.  Vaughn, through a Council contract, hired Republican operative David Brooks, to redraw the precinct boundaries.  The Republican 'explanation' for the need for new precincts is that the State Legislature drew up their new House and Senate districts without regard for precinct boundaries, in some cases splitting those precincts.

Now when a precinct is split, that means that there must be multiple ballots in the split precinct on Election Day, to accommodate the different constituents of the different districts.  Split precincts are not fun on election day as there are invariably folks given the wrong ballot and frustrated voters and poll workers.  In addition, the need for multiple variations of the ballot for a precinct drives up the cost of conducting the election; the added expense being passed on to the taxpayers, of course.

So, at first blush, reprecincting would seem to be a good way to save the taxpayers money by covering the lack of intelligent redistricting by the State Legislature.

However, consider this additional fact.  The Township Boards just finished redrawing their districts to conform to the 2000 census.  They had to finish their mapping by earlier this month as the Board seats are on the 2012 ballot.  State law bans redistricting during any year a district is up for election.  The Boards drew their new districts using the old precinct boundaries.  By introducing new precincts, the Mayor has guaranteed that there will be many split districts during next year's Primary and General Elections.  Some of the new precincts may be split by more than one Township Board district.

My examination of Indiana House and Senate districts leads me to a count of 15 House and 9 Senate districts that include any precincts in Marion County.  Compare that with the 9 Township Boards in our County, with 7 districts each, or 63 seats total.  The probability is high that there will be far more split precincts with the new map than had the old map been retained.  Expect a concomitant increase in expense for the two elections next year as a result.

Now on to the newly proposed Council district maps.  The Democratic caucus of the Council does bring up some legitimate criticisms of the way Vaughn has maneuvered the introduction of the maps to the Council for a vote.  Jon Easter posted the caucus' statement on his blog, Indy Democrat, just yesterday.  The Democrats point to the timing of the Mayor's approval of the new precinct maps, coming just two hours before the deadline for introduction of new proposals to the Council for 2011 - and - introduction by Vaughn of a Council Proposal to accept the new Council district maps drawn up under contract by Brooks, just minutes before the deadline.  This left the Democratic caucus with no opportunity to either draw their own proposed map with the new precinct boundaries, or to introduce said map to the Council for consideration.  That move by Vaughn was a clear partisan steamroller approach to party politics.

This is not to say that the Democrats can't draw their own maps when they take over in January. Obviously, Mayor Ballard will not sign such a map.  Also, it does not preclude a Court contest of any Republican map adopted in 2011, as State law seems to ban adoption of Council district maps any earlier than 2012.

I would remind all readers that ten years ago, the State Supreme Court came up with the districts we are now using and that they are nicely compact and in the best interest of Democracy.  The Democrat and Republican proposed maps introduced ten years ago suffered from as much gerrymandering as the ones to be introduced to the Council on December 5.

Meanwhile, there are 4 public meetings - one of which was held last night, with almost no notice.  From one attendee, I am told that the only basis of comment that will be considered by Brooks and the Republican caucus, is if there is a problem with the process.  They will not consider problems with the resultant map.

I spoke with Julia Vaughn (no relation to Ryan) of Common Cause about the mapping process.  Common Cause has, for a long time now, taken an interest in how district maps at all levels of government are drawn and has promoted a process that would embrace the least amount of gerrymandering at the lowest cost to taxpayers.  She has mentioned that there are programs that can be used, inexpensively, by any computer literate citizen to draw up their own proposal for compact districts that keep connected features of interest together.  Such a program, of course, would have to include the precinct boundaries in its code.  The speed with which Ryan Vaughn and Greg Ballard kicked through the new precincts followed by the introduction of a proposed Council map obviated any real participation by voters and taxpayers.

Julia Vaughn further suggests the following for a good public process to redistrict:

Best way would have been to appoint a diverse group of people - black, white, Latino, Republican. Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, northside, southside, eastside, westside, (you get the idea) of folks that would sponsor meetings in every township before any maps were drawn to get public input on what communities of interest exist (might be a racial group, neighborhood group, historic district etc) and what voters think the new districts should emphasize (competitive elections vs. a compact geographic area for example).  The map drawer should have weighed all of these considerations and then produced a map.  A second round of meetings should have followed to get or not get the public's buy-in on  what was proposed. 

This did not happen with the Republican map.  We mere citizens, who should be in the loop on such an important thing like Council districts, are left standing on the sidelines.  We can hope that the Democrats, who surely will proposed their own Council map in 2012, will follow an inclusive process like that suggested by Julia Vaughn.  Somebody in office needs to give a hoot about the public interest and the inclusion of the public in a fair and ample public process.

If you would like to attend one of the three remaining meetings on the new maps they are:

December 1st (Thursday) 6-8pm  ---  John Boner Center, 2236 East 10th Street

December 6th  (Tuesday) 6-8pm ---  Sterrett Center, 8950 Otis Avenue

December 8th (Thursday) 6-8pm ---  City County Building, Public Assembly Room

The Council Proposal containing the Republican Council district maps, will be introduced next Monday, December 5.  It likely will be assigned to the Rules Committee for a public hearing.  There are no currently scheduled meetings for that committee for the rest of the year, but one will surely be added to accommodate this issue.  Stay tuned for date and time.