Election commissioner wants bigger digs

Last fall, more than 17,000 people walked into the Douglas County election office to cast early ballots in the presidential election. Another 37,000 voted early by mail.

Election Commissioner Dave Phipps says the office in west Omaha was never intended to handle such a large influx of voters, who often waited in line for hours, or the parking woes that came with the increase in foot traffic.

Phipps is pushing for new digs in time for the 2010 elections.

“We've come to the point now where it's a matter of what's right and what's fair for voters,” he said.

His main hurdle is the Douglas County Board, which controls the purse strings. Board members say they are sympathetic, but any request to expand the budget this year must be scrutinized.

“It's a tough budget year. It's a tough year for everybody, and we don't want to burden the taxpayer,” said board member Marc Kraft.

Phipps said his request might be put on the board's July 14 agenda.

The election office moved to its current location near 115th and Burke Streets after outgrowing its downtown facility at the courthouse. The office is almost hidden behind a strip mall, off a side street and next to a residential area.

It doesn't have a lot of parking, and the lobby was never intended to handle large groups, Phipps said.

In 1999, when the new office opened, early voting had just been approved by the Legislature.

Phipps said that last year people often had to park six blocks away in a residential area and wait in lines that wrapped around the building.

“I'm fairly certain that if I told our neighbors we'd be moving, they'd probably move us for free,” he said, laughing.

The problem is money. The current office building is owned by the county, which means Phipps does not have to pay rent.

Any new office would come with a new rent bill.

Phipps has proposed leasing a building at 97th Street and Mockingbird Drive. The building has plenty of parking and is on a bus route. It also has 18,000 square feet, double the current office space.

A proposed deal has been worked out with the building's owners where the county would not have to pay rent for two years. Owners also would renovate the building to accommodate Phipps and his staff.

After that, rent would be $146,000 annually for the first two years, $186,000 annually for the next two years and $224,000 for each remaining year, said Phipps.

Kraft likes the proposed new office space. “It's accessible. It's on a bus route and it has a lot of parking,” he said.

But he said the County Board is trying to put a hold on new spending in tough economic times. Kraft said new office space is not out of the question, but Phipps will not have an easy time convincing the board.

Phipps has rejected another option — opening satellite offices for early voting — as impractical.

Satellites would be difficult in Douglas County because of the number of different ballot combinations.

There are about 450 different ballots in a general election, due to the numerous local elections on the ballot and the way the county is divided politically.

“Most places that have satellite offices do it with electronic voting,” Phipps said.

Any satellite office in Douglas County would have to have all ballots on hand to accommodate any voter who walked in.

“We have so many different smaller races on the ballot. The person living next to you may vote on 99 percent of the things you do, but they may vote in a different natural resources district,” for example, Phipps said.

Satellite offices would require the county to hire additional staff. The county also would have to decide where to locate the offices.

“It's not something we can easily do, just because we don't have the staff to do it,” Phipps said.

Lancaster County considered establishing satellites, he said, but scrapped the idea when there was no agreement on where to place the offices.

He said Hall County is considering satellites. The idea is to place a small printer in each satellite and print individual ballots for voters.

Phipps said that for technical reasons, that would not be feasible in Douglas County.

Contact the writer:

444-1309, robynn.tysver@owh.com