There were a few suggestions and a few questions, but overall the testimony at the April 20 public hearing supported the proposal to replace traditional polling locations in Arapahoe County with voting centers.

“This public hearing is part of the process to decide how Arapahoe County conducts its voting in the future,” Nancy Doty, county clerk and recorder, told the 27 people at the hearing.

Traditionally, the county sets up and staffs about 200 polling places. The proposal for the 2011 election was to replace those polling places with 17 voting centers. That number would grow to 30 for the 2012 election. Doty said voting centers make sense since about 80 percent of the voters cast ballots by mail.

Doty said voting centers are more efficient. She said the county hired and trained about 1,500 people for the 2010 election and deployed about 1,100 voting machines. She said, if the voting centers are approved, the county will hire about 150 people for the 2011 election and deploy about 200 voting machines so it would be more economical to use voting centers instead of polling places.

Doty noted any registered voter can go to any center an vote as a result of the data on the real-time information in the electronic poll books.

Twelve of the 15 people who spoke at the public hearing supported the proposal because it was more efficient and economical than operating the traditional polling places.

With the comments from municipalities, submitted by mail or e-mail and the public hearing testimony, Doty will now prepare a proposal that will be presented to the Arapahoe County Commissioners at 9:30 a.m. May 3.