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MALLS: THE NEW BALLOT BOXES?

BY MAURA K. AMMENHEUSER

Go to the mall and pick out a new dress, new shoes, a CD — or a president.

Voter registration officials seem to get ever more creative about making it easier for people to vote. Witness the introduction of electronic polling venues inside malls.

In Texas, which created early voting in 1987, citizens can cast ballots for several weeks leading up to Election Day. The state’s Travis County, which includes the city of Austin, decided to maximize participation in early voting by allowing people to cast early ballots at places where they tend to spend a lot of time anyway: college campuses, supermarkets and, yes, shopping centers. The county now works with 26 such venues, including the Highland and Northcross malls, both in Austin.

The idea was to offer “multiple opportunities for people to vote and put it right across their path,” said Dana DeBeauvoir, Travis County clerk.

Officials in Orange County, Calif., launched a similar program this year at six shopping centers there during the spring primaries. Four of those centers — Buena Park (Calif.) Mall; The Shops at Mission Viejo (Calif.); Westfield Shoppingtown MainPlace, Santa Ana; and Westminster (Calif.) Mall — allowed voting on their premises from October up to the general election, says Brett Rowley, public information officer for Orange County’s voter registration office.

Two others that hosted the primaries — Brea (Calif.) Mall and Irvine (Calif.) Spectrum Center — couldn’t accommodate the general election because of construction or lack of space, according to Rowley. A third, Asian Gardens, in Westminster, was saying at press time that it planned to participate in the October early voting.

“We’re counting on the shopping centers to be one of the biggest draws” for early voting this election, Rowley said, speaking slightly more than a month before the election. “The malls [during the primaries] provided us with the greatest reach.” Indeed, of the 5,000 Orange County residents who voted early, 3,710 cast their ballots at shopping centers, he says.

In Orange County and Texas, it’s not even a problem if a mall lies outside a voter’s district. Both use a computerized voting system to verify home addresses and provide appropriate ballots, ensuring that the right local and state candidates are listed according to the voter’s home precinct. And having weeks to cast a ballot rather than a single day helps shut-ins and those who know ahead of time that they can’t get to the polls on Election Day because of schedule conflicts, sources say.

As for the venue, election officials crave the traffic that malls draw, and shopping centers are wheelchair-accessible and offer plenty of parking.

But why would shopping center managers want to get involved with an election? After all, the 2000 presidential election culminated in a major balloting debacle, and the controversial war in Iraq had political experts predicting a photo finish for the 2004 race.

Shopping center executives told SCT they had no qualms, however. They are eager to provide a public service, they say, noting that so far they have had no problems, and besides, it’s up to voter registration officials, not mall employees, to ensure that an election runs properly.

Centers let election workers use their in-line space or common areas.

“We’re offering a community service,” said Patsy Sanquist, marketing director at The Shops at Mission Viejo. “It brings people to the shopping center, which is always good. It ran so smoothly; I heard a lot of positive comments from customers.”

One-stop voting
Brandi Friel, MainPlace’s marketing director, cites the convenience. “You can go out on your lunch break and vote.” And voters may stick around to eat or shop, notes Monica Blackburn, Highland’s retail marketing manager. “For us, it’s kind of an easy setup,” Blackburn said. Highland provides space and a phone line, and election officials take care of the rest.

None of the centers in Orange or Travis counties have yet researched the effect of early voting on their traffic or sales.

“But I can tell you that you’re probably looking at a 20 to 25 percent spike in visible foot traffic,” said Robert Townsend, a San Antonio mall reimaging consultant who has a long working relationship with Northcross Mall, including an ongoing revitalization. Elections can attract people who otherwise wouldn’t have visited during that period, he said.

It’s also difficult to gauge the effect on voter participation of early voting at the mall — or anyplace else, for that matter.

Orange County has 1.4 million registered voters, of whom at press time Rowley was anticipating some 20,000 would take advantage of early voting before the general election. The county tends to see turnout percentages in the 70s, which is high relative to most of the country. But this arrangement at shopping centers is more for public convenience than sheer numbers, Rowley says.

“We didn’t know for a long time if we were bringing customers to them [malls] or they were bringing customers to us,” said Travis County’s DeBeauvoir. “It’s almost impossible to figure out how you affected turnout.” She speculates that in a medium-turnout election, early voting may boost participation by about 5 percent.

That’s hardly earth-shattering, but in a county where voter turnout averages just 50 percent — and that’s the highest per capita rate in Texas, according to DeBeauvoir — even a small boost is worth great efforts.

Inconvenience is only one of about six reasons why people don’t vote, said David Schultze, a professor of political science and law at Hamline University Graduate School of Public Administration and Management, in St. Paul, Minn. Other reasons include cumbersome registration procedures and voter apathy or the inability to draw strong distinctions between candidates, he says. Early voting in shopping centers “will help some, but it’s clearly not the be-all or end-all of voter turnouts,” he said.

No electioneering
Don’t expect balloting machines in every suburban mall, though. Not every management company is willing to host the polls. Some bar political activity of any sort on their premises. And as Rowley discovered, space isn’t always available.

Still, wherever malls have participated, “it’s worked out well, and the voters love it,” DeBeauvoir said.

Sources reported only two negative incidents. In Travis County, the voter registration office has an agreement with candidates that they will not loiter near the polls at the malls, grocery stores or other places of business, DeBeauvoir said. She worries that if shoppers feel harassed it could cost her permission to use that venue. She recalls one local politician who violated this agreement and did, in fact, prompt a supermarket chain to bar future voting on its premises.

A more colorful incident with fewer repercussions also occurred in Travis County. A woman walked into a mall voting area wearing a candidate’s campaign T-shirt. Election law prohibits candidates’ ads inside the balloting area, so an election official told the woman she could not wear that shirt there.

“She said, ‘OK,’ and took her shirt off,” DeBeauvoir said, then laughed. “Fortunately, she was young and attractive.”

Interestingly, the only people unenthusiastic about early voting, regardless of the venue, are the candidates, Schultze says.

“They time their [advertising] message to peak on voting day,” he said, but with balloting spread out over several weeks, “they go nuts.”