Election changes proposed

Legislation would make it easier to get absentee ballots

State election officials want to make it easier for voters to request absentee ballots.

A proposal that would allow electronic applications via the Secretary of State’s website is headed to the 2012 Louisiana Legislature for approval.

The idea is included in a proposed omnibus bill that seeks more than three dozen changes to the state laws governing elections dealing with such things as a new date of a major election, dead voter election challenges, timing of special municipal elections and shortening of ballot proposition language.

“We do have quite a hefty bill,” Secretary of State Tom Schedler said.

Schedler said elections officials have been unsuccessful in getting the comprehensive legislation approved for the last two years as it has gotten caught up controversy. Election officials try to restrict the legislation to noncontroversial changes, but riders got added in the process, causing problems.

The new omnibus bill will include past proposals as well as some new ones that have cropped up since 2011, Schedler said.

“We have just got to get it done this year,” Schedler said. “It’s a collection of backlog of things we think are important.”

Separately, Schedler said the agency will once again seek to reduce election day voting hours. Instead of from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., the proposal would be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Several items in the general legislation deal with absentee voting.

Today, people can register to vote electronically, state elections commissioner Angie Rogers said.

The proposal would expand the capability into the absentee voting arena, where today, voters must write a letter over their signature requesting the ballot, she said.

Among those who can absentee vote by mail are those in the military, college students who go to school outside the parish where they live, voters age 65-plus, the disabled, nursing home residents, offshore workers and sequestered jurors.

Rogers said another proposal would eliminate a provision under which the absentee ballots could not be requested any earlier than 60 days before an election.

The agency wants to get rid of the requirement that registrars of voters post the names of people who have requested to vote absentee by mail, Rogers said.

“It’s to prevent fraud, prevent people from harassing people to get them to vote a certain way,” Rogers said.

Louisiana returns to an open primary congressional elections system in 2012 with all candidates, regardless of party, facing each other on the same ballot.

Rogers said the elections office will seek to change the general election date from the first Saturday in December to the second Saturday in the month. She said there is insufficient time between the primary election in November and the general election for election officials to do their job.

Another change would repeal a law that allows a challenge of an absentee vote cast by a person who later dies. “It has the possibility of not being applied equally,” said Rogers.

He also noted that there is no similar provision for someone who votes in person then dies in a car accident that day.

“If your constitutional right to vote is the last thing you do before you die, it should be counted,” Rogers said.

There will also be a few cost-saving measures included in the general bill, Rogers said.

Today, if vacancies occur in elected parish offices and there’s a regularly scheduled election within a year of that vacancy, the election law does not require a special election to be held, Rogers said.

That saves the cost of special elections, she said.

Elections wants to expand that provision to municipal elections for mayor, councilmen, aldermen and the like, she said.

Another change would affect the ballot language used when governing authorities seek approval of tax and other propositions. The propositions would be limited to 2,000 words — half of the current 4,090 words.