Orange County supervisors to consider vote system overhaul replacing polling places with vote centers

Orange County supervisors are set to consider a sweeping overhaul of the county’s voting system that would eliminate polling places and replace them with vote centers, which election officials say could make it easier to cast ballots, increase participation and save the county upwards of $29 million.

But the new model – which would be implemented by the March 2020 primary election – has been opposed in recent years by some state and local Republicans. And when the majority-GOP county board meets on Tuesday, partisan dynamics could threaten to thwart the proposal for the second time in two years.

If implemented, Orange County would be the sixth county in the state to switch to vote centers. Under the new system, the county would replace its 1,200 precincts polls with 188 vote centers. It would open the facilities 10 days prior to elections to give locals more time to vote in-person. All of the county’s 1.6 million registered voters automatically would receive mail ballots. And the county would install nearly 100 military-grade secure drop boxes where people could deposit their ballots at any time up through Election Day.

“The voting experience vastly would improve because voters are no longer tied to their home precinct,” said Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelly, who submitted the vote-center proposal to the board. “They could vote at any location – near work, home, or school. It shifts the voting experience to convenience for voters.”

Kelly said the model reflects a shift in how Californians cast ballots.

In 1996, nearly four in five Orange County voters voted in person. By last year, only a quarter did so, with 61 percent of all registered voters now signed up to permanently receive mail ballots. And while the county’s existing system requires voters to cast ballots at their local polling place or fill out provisional ballots (which take longer to count), the proposed model would allow people to vote at any location.

Kelly said the changes could allow the county to certify elections within two weeks of Election Day – about half the time it took to fully count and vet November’s results.

Yet some Republican leaders have been averse to the vote center model.

In 2017, a then all-GOP Orange County board nixed a early identical plan. At the time, then-Supervisor Shawn Nelson expressed concern that the change would confuse voters if implemented during the 2018 cycle when new statewide election laws allowed people to register to vote on Election Day and to deliver mail ballots for other voters. Then-Supervisor Todd Spitzer and Orange County GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker went further, alleging that the new system could encourage voter fraud and undue influence from people collecting ballots. They called for the county to wait to consider the new model until after the 2018 election.

In response to the board’s decision, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, wrote a letter to Orange County supervisors in June 2017, accusing them of playing partisan politics and whipping up unfounded fears of election fraud.

Other Republicans have been more overtly partisan in their opposition to vote centers. As Orange County supervisors prepare to vote, the California Republican Party alleged that the new model – allowed under a 2016 state law – was designed by Democrats legislators to boost their party’s turnout.

“Just like same-day voter registration and legalization of ballot harvesting, this is one more law passed by the Democrat lawmakers and signed by a Democrat governor designed to increase Democrat voter turnout,” California Republican Party spokesman Matt Flemming said.

Recent evidence doesn’t support the notion that vote centers increase voter fraud or alter partisan turnout. Last year, when five California counties – including Sacramento – eliminated polling place voting, the locales experienced increased overall turnout, but election officials there reported no evidence of malfeasance associated with the change. The counties also saw no significant change in how registered Democrats or Republicans participated.

“It had no bearing on that,” said Orange County Supervisor Doug Chaffee, the board’s lone Democrat, who declined to say whether he’d be voting in support of a vote center system. “There are a lot of positives about it, so I’m looking forward to hearing what my other supervisors say.”

Three of the board’s four sitting supervisors will need to back the change on Tuesday for it to pass. Supervisor Lisa Bartlett declined to comment on the proposal. Supervisor Andrew Do’s office didn’t return calls for comment.

The cost savings in Kelly’s plan comes from having to purchase fewer pricy voting machines. Under the cheapest vote center option, the county would open 188 of the facilities with new equipment estimated to cost $8.5 million. Kelley projects that replacing the county’s current aging voting machines could cost $40 million. Other options in Kelly’s proposal to supervisors could see the county open as many as 500 vote centers at a substantially higher cost of $49 million.