Utah legislators are considering whether to adopt an early voting process here.
A number of other states currently allow registered voters to cast ballots before the regular Election Day.
Where it's been tried, citizens like it and voter turnout has increased, officials say. Nevada has early voting where citizens can cast ballots for up to 10 days before Election Day, including weekends, at designated gathering areas, like malls or government offices.
Utah, along with most other states, has had a form of early voting for years — absentee balloting.
But in Utah absentee balloting is a cumbersome process. For example, to get an absentee ballot you have to declare that you won't be around on Election Day itself, that you will be out of state, out of your voting precinct and so on.
It's likely some people who today are absentee balloting are not out of the state or even out of their voting precinct on Election Day. They just say they will be so they don't have to stand in the long lines that are seen at some overcrowded polling places.
In any case, Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, the state's official election officer, is in a pickle.
Following the voting fiasco in Florida in 2000 — you remember that the U.S. Supreme Court had to rule that George W. Bush was elected president because of those problems — Congress passed a law that says, among other things, states have to move to electronic voting by 2006. No more dangling chads on punch-card ballots.
That means some kind of computerized casting of ballots. And that probably means some kind of touch-screen video voting, with a hard-copy backup that election judges can download to recheck each machine's accuracy.
Such machines are now costing between $2,500 and $3,000 each, depending on the manufacturer, says Amy Naccarato, state elections director.
Congress is providing each state money for the new machines, based on voting age population. Utah should get $28 million in total; $8.8 million has already arrived.
At current funding, however, the state won't be able to buy enough new machines to replace all the old punch-card machines used by most Utah counties (a few counties are already using electronic voting).
That means, says Walker, that in some counties, like highly urban Wasatch Front areas, there could be long lines on Election Day unless counties themselves cough up more cash, or legislators spend state money, or the way we vote changes.
Considering that 27 states already have early voting — and citizens in those states really like that convenience — it's time for Utah to consider early voting, too, say Walker and county clerks.
But wait, say some legislators. What does this mean for Utahns in general and legislators in particular?
Some legislators worry that the cost of their own campaigns will go up because of early voting. With few absentee ballots and most Utahns going to the polls on Election Day, candidates often "drop" literature the weekend before Election Day. Turn-out-the-vote calls into homes are made that weekend, too. Radio and TV ads blanket the airwaves the final week.
If they have to mail those brochures two weeks early to get all of the 10-day voting cycle, voters could throw the paper away, forget what it said and so on. And when do you conduct turn-out-the-vote drives?
Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, says early voting could easily double the cost of campaigns. And, he adds, that would harm challengers, not incumbents, because incumbents can always find more money by hitting up previous donors or special interest groups.
Anything that increases the costs of campaigns, and thus reduces the ability of "regular citizens" to run for office, is bad for democracy, he says.
I don't argue with that logic, although Bigelow and others may overemphasize the campaign cash problem. Campaign costs may go up some; campaign strategy has to change.
But this I do see: When it comes to legislators' own conflicts of interest, be they political or personal, don't count on rational decisions being made. And don't count on legislators putting voters before themselves when it comes to early voting.
Legislators are reaching pretty deep to justify why "regular citizens" will be abused by early voting.
One scenario says that a local county clerk, who would get to say exactly where early voting polling places would be located, could pick a location in the county that would favor one candidate or party over another. For example, a GOP county clerk could decide not to put an early polling place in Magna — a predominately Democratic area — and so try to drive down the Democratic vote in that area. (Magna voters could still early vote, they'd just have to drive to, say, West Valley, to do so and probably wouldn't bother.)
But even if this is a real concern, you can count on both political parties carefully watching such shenanigans and complaining loudly and publicly if it were tried. County clerks are elected, too, remember.
No, it looks like the Utah Legislature won't be adopting early voting any time soon because it could hit them where it hurts — their own re-election campaigns.
Of course, someone could bypass the Legislature and run a citizen initiative petition to adopt early voting . . . no, wait, legislators last session made it much, much more difficult to get a citizen initiative on the ballot. Never mind.
Enjoy your one-day trip to the polls, including the lines to get a ballot. You'll be seeing those for a while yet.
Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com