Elections test electronic IDs

Scanning driver’s licenses quicker than paper logs

— Though Missouri has no photo-identification requirement for voting, thousands of residents showed their driver’s licenses to get ballots this year.

That could become the new norm because of technological advances that use bar codes embedded in driver’s licenses to check in people to vote.

In 19 states including about one-fifth of Missouri counties, local election officials this year used laptop computers or tablets to verify eligible voters. In many of those instances, prospective voters provided a driver’s license or voter-registration card containing a bar code, which when scanned by poll workers automatically matched their identities against a computerized list of registered voters to determine whether they were eligible to vote and in thecorrect precinct.

These so-called electronic poll books proved faster than traditional paper logs. As a result, numerous election officials are now considering adopting the technology for future elections.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat whose off ice provides grants for electiontechnology improvements, described the electronic poll books as “super-efficient” and “really terrific.”

The electronic devices also could add a new wrinkle to the political debate about photo voter-identification requirements.

Seventeen states currently require voters to show a photo ID at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And at least 18 states besides Missouri made some use of electronic poll books duringthe 2012 elections, according to a survey by the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Republican lawmakers in Missouri passed a photo-ID mandate in 2006, but it was struck down by the state Supreme Court in a ruling that essentially required any future photo-ID proposal to win approval from statewide voters as a constitutional amendment.

Scott Leiendecker is one of the drivers of the technological trend. He resigned as the Republican director of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners before the 2012 election cycle to start a company called “Know iNK.” Leiendecker sold iPad systems capable of functioning as electronic poll books to 11 Missouri counties this past year. Since the election, Leiendecker said, he has roughly doubledhis number of clients.

“The ID coupled with something like this would almost be like a speed pass, so you could get people through the line more quickly,” Leiendecker said recently while displaying his “Poll Pad” device at the state Capitol.

Under current Missouri law, if voters do not have a driver’s license or registration card from their county clerk, they still can show one of several other forms of identification to poll workers, including a utility bill or bank statement. Poll workers could use that information to type a person’s name into an electronic poll book; it just would take a little bit longer to verify than a barcode scan.

Some secretaries of state also are looking at electronic poll books as an alternative to a formal photo-identification mandate.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie suggestedthis year that driver’s license photos could be loaded onto electronic poll books so that election workers could verify voters. If voters didn’t have a driver’s license, poll workers could take a photo of them on the spot and enter it in the computerized poll book. Minnesota’s Republican-controlled Legislature rejected the plan of the Democratic secretary of state and instead referred a traditional voter-photo ID measure to the ballot; it was defeated by voters.

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat who is president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, recently proposed something similar in his state. He wants to implement electronic poll books equipped with photos from the Department of Motor Vehicles for future elections.

“This would require the poll workers to verify that the photo that is on file is the same person who has shown up to vote,” Miller said. “It provides the exact same safeguard as when you use voter-ID proposals, but it puts the onus on taking the photo on the government and therefore wouldn’t disenfranchise any voters.”

Front Section, Pages 2 on 12/17/2012

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