Question of the day
Thursday, Apr 19, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
This is really a fascinating debate because it has no simple answer…
Proposals lawmakers have considered included such actions as forcing sex offenders to vote early, closing schools to students on Election Day and requiring sex offenders vote via absentee ballot.
At issue are the voting habits of the offenders. So long as they’re not incarcerated, sex offenders can cast a ballot much like anyone else.
Normally, sex offenders must stay away from parks, schools, libraries and other places where children congregate. But those rules do not apply on Election Day, since schools statewide often serve as polling places. […]
Of the 1,835 registered sex offenders in the Daily Herald coverage area, fewer than a quarter were registered to vote and only 143 voted last November. The 28 sex offenders who voted in person at a school represent just 1.5 percent of the sex offender population.
Question: How should the state deal with sex offenders whose precinct polling places are in schools?
- Kilroy - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:13 am:
This sounds like a thinly disguised way to disenfranchise minority voters.
But sexual predators are one of the four horsemen of the infocalypse, so I say we continue to beat them down every chance we get.
They are really quite sick, you know.
- Wumpus - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:20 am:
Vote at the town hall
- Crimefighter - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:23 am:
I’d say they should vote at the courthouse where absentee voting occurs.
- Justice - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:36 am:
First, I would qualify who a sex offender is, as such relates to children and the fear of having them around schools. Many were 18-year olds who were with 16 and 17 year olds. In many states, that doesn’t label them for life as a sex offender. I think the real culprit is pedophiles or sexual predators. They should be required to vote at the Court house.
- RBD - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:47 am:
I’m an election judge at a polling place in a grade school. To the extent I’m concerned, my concern is not limited to the Registered offenders. We’ve had some creepy men lingering around the place (and the official security person couldn’t be found, as usual).
The entire voting process needs to be revised. Using the sex offenders is a good excuse -that the anti-change people will find to argue against - to revise the process so we aren’t spending millions for an elections that few participate in.
Instead of one polling place per 500 voters, it should be one-to-5000 - in a trailer set up in a grocery store parking lot. Virtually everyone goes to the grocery store at some point so this is not an inconvenient place.
(FYI: In Cook County, at least, the election staff already goes building-to-building for senior citizens and the infirm so they already get special treatment.)
- i d - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:56 am:
I don’t think that schools should be used as polling places unless that is a school holiday. I understand that kids may be at risk while at the movies, shopping malls or other places; however, it is different to have one of their “places of safety” to be opened to the general public.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 9:59 am:
If the sex offense didn’t involve children why not just let them vote?
- so-called "Austin Mayor" - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:09 am:
Early voting seems like the very convenient solution to this problem.
- pickles!! - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:12 am:
I’m not seeing this as a big problem. Are there children running around polling places unwatched? Not at mine there wasn’t.
If it is a problem, they should vote absentee. But I’m not seeing a big issue here.
- rachel - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:16 am:
Registered sex offenders should cast absentee ballots or take advantage of early voting. I do not think we need another school holiday! Changing the venue of polling places for sex offenders seems inappropriate.
- Alison - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:33 am:
This is a no-brainer — early voting. If the individual doesn’t have access to the county clerk’s office, they can still use the alternate sites. Most of the time they’re in libraries, & children aren’t using them during school hours.
- yinn - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:52 am:
I am surprised to know that schools are still being used as polling sites. In my area they’re not. It’s not consistent with security policies.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:56 am:
My polling place has been in a school for the past couple of elections. I have never seen a child during the time I vote, I don’t know if they give the children time off or keep them in classrooms or what.
There are typically time periods in a school year that are school holidays so the teachers can get professional training (Institute days they used to be called) why can’t they arrange to have one of those days be on election day?
- HoosierDaddy - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 10:56 am:
I’d have to go with i.d. Schools should not be used as polling places. It’s disruptive and poses a security risk. We have enough crazy nuts running around schools without inviting them in to vote. More commonly, though, it’s just a pain for the school officials and election officials to be in each others’ way on election days.
(oops, politically incorrect detector went off, I should have said “reality-impaired persons”)
- Ken in Aurora - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 11:21 am:
Personally, I don’t think convicted felons (as I assume most registered sex offenders would be) should have the right to vote to begin with.
That said, make them vote in a special location such as the county courthouse.
- pickles!! - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 11:27 am:
Yes, my polling place has been a high school for the last 10 years or so. It doesn’t seem to interupt the school at all. As far as it ebing a security issue, i think we have that problem almost everywhere we go.
- Way Northsider - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 11:47 am:
Early voting.
- i d - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 12:27 pm:
To those that vote in a school: Are the voters and poll workers monitored in any way, are they allowed to use bathrooms, are children allowed to go unattended to bathrooms, other classroom, the school office or nurse etc.? Unless the kids areas were completely out of bounds and secured, no one should be wandering around to use restrooms or a vending machines with the ability to cross paths with any child.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 12:57 pm:
No restrictions that I’ve ever seen. I enter and follow the signs to the polling place (the gym). I’ve obviously never tried deviating from the route, so I don’t know if maybe there is a security mechanism but certainly I’ve never seen anyone monitoring the situation outside of the gym.
Like I said though, I’ve never seen a child while I’ve been there voting so either I’ve arrived when the children are safely tucked in their classrooms, or there’s some kind of lockdown situation, or the children are off for the day, I’m not sure.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 2:45 pm:
I do not like having strangers walking en masse into schools, don’t you? The days of using schools during school days should end immediately.
Election days are fighting days around the world. We have been very fortunate here. I can easily see a time when a group grabs schools on election day and make political headlines around the world doing so. An action such as that would throw everyone off balance could throw an entire election into turmoil.
This is not just a question about dangerous child preditors, this is a question about safety. Period.
We can close schools - move polling stations - move election day from Tuesdays to Saturdays - require voters with a record to vote absentee, or by web - we need to start thinking.
Paranoid? Nope. Just a father recognizing the importance of protecting our future by ensuring we do everything to keep our children safe.
Close the schools.
- annoyed all the time - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 4:11 pm:
to Rachel - “changing the venue seems inappropriate” - we are talking about registered sex offenders being at a location that they are banned from - they should not be allowed at the school no matter what - their voting should take place at a courthouse or be restricted to early voting only - I am sorry but to think that while my daughter is at school that just because the offender has the right to vote he is now allowed at her school troubles me - there is a reason for the condition on his release and it’s not to be at the schools -
- Anonymous - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 5:29 pm:
We should move voting to the weekend anyway - then it wouldn’t matter.
- Concerned Voter - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 8:58 pm:
Make them vote absentee, at the courthouse/county buildings. Sorry for the inconvenience, but maybe they should have thought of all the possible freedoms they could lose by becoming a sex offender.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Apr 19, 07 @ 11:47 pm:
Requiring Sex offenders to vote differently, whether absentee or early, would never withstand constitutional scrutiny. Every other voter in America has the right to make up their mind when they step into the voting booth on Election Day, you can’t take that right away from one class of people.
HoosierDaddy’s comments are more on point. If we’re worried about 143 sex offenders walking into our schools today, we have an even bigger problem, because every other November hundreds of thousands of voters walk into schools, and odds are lots of them are sex offenders, they just haven’t been caught yet. Worse, anyone of them could be carrying a gun.
If we were taking the security precautions we should be taking to protect our kids from all strangers, there’s no reason to worry if some of them are registered sex offenders. I think it’s every school administrator’s first responsibility to make the determination whether they can adequately protect kids from all strangers before they offer to be a polling place, otherwise, they should tell the County Clerk/Board of Elections “Sorry, no can do.”