In a front page article July 16 by Democrat staff writer Isabel Braverman the headline above the story states, “Early voting: Is it worth it?”

Braverman while attending a legislature Government Services     Committee meeting heard Sullivan County Board of Elections Commissioner Lori Benjamin note, “that the county has to pay staff to work the polls as well as pay overtime during that time.”

Benjamin in this story noted, “turnout was extremely low in the last primary on June 22 and that during the early voting period there were 58 voters and that based on the numbers comes out to $1,000 per vote.”

The Elections Commissioner pointed out, “I can understand early voting when the whole county is involved or if it’s a big election--presidential or federal.”

Benjamin pointed out that when it comes to smaller elections they will ask the state to modify early voting regulations..such as shortening the number of days.

Matthew Brown, a White House NOW reporter at USA Today reports “that a recent Monmouth University Poll found most Americans support greater access to early voting, as well as increased requirements for voter ID laws.”

Brown said that the poll’s findings “indicate strong broad and bipartisan public support for election law reforms often at odds with each other in partisan debates over voting.”

The USA Today reporter pointed out that, “nearly two thirds of those polled, 71% supports that it should be overall easier to vote early in elections,” and, “according to the Monmouth University poll 80% of the public also supports requiring a form of identification before a person can vote.”