Bangor’s streamlined voting posed few problems

BANGOR – Despite concerns about long lines and voter confusion, the city’s consolidated voting procedures seem to have resulted in few problems, a city official said.

Tuesday marked the first major election since the consolidation took effect.

“I think that overall, we had very few issues that arose during the day. I was concerned because it was the first big election since we consolidated polling places,” City Clerk Patti Dubois said Wednesday.

“The only backup we had was at the 5 p.m. rush, when a lot of people were getting out of work,” she said. Extra city employees were sent to the polls to help with the onslaught.

The results of Tuesday’s state and city elections were posted on the city’s Web site, at www.bangormaine.gov, by about 9:45 p.m., or less than two hours after the polls closed, according to Dubois.

In contrast, election results in 2004 weren’t available until the next day, in large part because absentee ballots still were being counted.

Dubois thinks the increasing popularity of absentee, or early, voting played a role in the early finish.

Because absentee ballots were processed at all four sites throughout the day Tuesday, the final tallies were available much earlier than for major elections in the past.

In Bangor, the percentage of voters who choose to cast their votes early continues to climb.

In the most recent presidential election two years ago, 25 percent of the residents who voted did so by absentee ballot.

In Tuesday’s gubernatorial election, which drew about half of the city’s registered voters, more than 4,500 voters – or about 40 percent – voted absentee.

About half the city’s voters were reassigned to new polling sites because of the City Council’s decision this year to cut the number of polling sites from eight to four, effective with the June primary elections.

To that end, voters were divided among four sites: Bangor Civic Center on Dutton Street, Bangor Community Center on Davis Road, Bangor High School on Broadway, and William S. Cohen School on Garland Street.

Scrapped were the former polling sites at Fairmount School on Thirteenth Street, Mary Snow School off Essex Street, Abraham Lincoln School on Forest Avenue, and Fourteenth Street School.While the reduction in polling places meant some voters had to travel farther to do their civic duty, the city arranged for free rides on BAT Community Connector buses for voters who needed a lift to the polls.

In addition, the consolidation allowed the city to provide more voting booths and election staff at each location.

The city was able to triple the number of voting machines at each site, which meant voting did not need to come to a halt when one machine broke down.

Dubois said she will report her observations to the City Council early next year, at which time the new system might be fine-tuned.

“We need to review costs, and whether we should staff the civic center for two weeks versus three,” she said, adding that election workers tracked the periods of peak demand, “and that will help with staffing decisions in the future.”