Statewide voter registration system pitched to Senate Finance

Secretary of State Dean Heller made the argument to the Senate Finance Committee in pushing a $1.5 million computer system aimed at backstopping local election officials.

"Right now, there is no way of checking for voter fraud. There's no way to cross check the information," he said.

Currently, each county has its own voter database, which typically is not compatible with those of other counties. Candidates who want to compile mailing lists can't go to one source.

But lawmakers weren't convinced that the potential benefits outweighed the cost.

Sen. Bob Coffin asked if the price was too high to catch "maybe a few hundred people" registered to vote in more than one county.

"These political races are very competitive," Coffin said. "I'm sure a Republican candidate would red-flag a Democratic voter registered in more than one county."

Coffin also asked if Heller could look into finding federal funds to pay for the system.

California and Utah recently implemented statewide voter registration, and can even communicate with each other and eliminate voters who move between the two states.

Heller also asked the Finance Committee to let his office contract out phone services. The secretary of state gets about 2,000 phone calls a day, and Heller estimated his staff can only answer 800.

The cost of jobbing out the phone service would more than pay for itself, he said, adding, "We believe we're losing money because we don't answer our phones."

Another indicator of the secretary of state's office performance is the number of times the office is sued during election cycles, he said. The office was sued eight times in the last election.

"That can be due to two things: One, the incompetence of the secretary of state; or two, a lack of clarity in election laws," he said. "I'd like to argue the latter."

Heller emphasized that election laws needed to be examined and cleared up during this legislative session.

"There are currently no city election statutes," he said. "There's a city election coming up in May and we have no statutes to run it."

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