MHS Publishes Early Voting Schedule: No Tickets Required

I see the Madison Central School District has posted a list of absentee voting opportunities. Permit me to post the schedule hear in clean and simple text to spare you the trouble of clicking on the school's needlessly bandwidthy PDF:

Date	Event	Location	Time
12/20	Middle School band/choir concert	High School Auditorium	7:00 p.m.
12/21	Boys basketball	Cafeteria	4:45 p.m.
1/7	Girls basketball	Cafeteria	4:45 p.m.
1/10	Boys basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	4:45 p.m.
1/12	Open voting	Elementary Commons	12:45 p.m.
1/13	Girls basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	5:00 p.m.
1/15	Gymnastics	Cafeteria	Noon
1/17	Forum	Cafeteria	7:00 p.m. after Forum
1/18	Open voting	Elementary Commons	3:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
1/20	Boys basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	5:00 p.m.
1/21	Wrestling (Madison Square Garden)	Cafeteria	6:00 p.m.
1/25	Forum	Cafeteria	7:00 p.m. after Forum

Dang—I already missed a couple!

A couple things occurred to me last night about the school district's early-voting scheme. First, the school can't conduct early voting at a basketball game... or at least not on the other side of the ticket table. Suppose concerned citizens want to observe the voting, as they are entitled by state law to do. Suppose they're on a tight budget and can't afford a ticket to the basketball game. If school business manager and election officer Cindy Callies sets up a voting table on paid side of the ticket booth, she creates a barrier to poll watchers, not to mention potential voters.

There can be no price of admission to access any polling place. That's why, in the above schedule, the polling during high school games is listed at the cafeteria or the auditorium. But there still had better not be any electioneering near that voting table!

Note also that it's a bit tough to make to observe the polls when the school district doesn't include a closing time for its early polls. Keeping democracy honest is hard work, but on January 20th, for instance, it would be nice to know if voting will run for just an hour or if I should pack a snadwich and expect to be there for four hours.

Absent from the school's new gym/renovation information site is a list of workplaces that have requested early voting sessions. If any such sessions are scheduled, we should expect similar public notification.

Note, business owners, that if you invite Mrs. Callies to hold early voting at your business, you'll need to open your doors to any person who wants to come in and watch or even vote. That's our right. You can't call Mrs. Callies and say, "I have five employees who want to vote; please bring five ballots down." If folks on the street hear that you're conducting an early vote at your office, and they want to drop in and vote at that time as well, you have to let them in, and Mrs. Callies has to bring enough ballots for such a contingency.

The school district has already lost one supporter with its gaming of the vote. I hope the school will compensate for its questionable vote-stacking by keeping the process as transparent as possible.