There's a lot of energy going into getting people to vote early, and it appears to be working. Portland this week broke its record for absentee voting in a non-presidential election. Voting in advance of an election is growing more popular in Maine. You can do it by casting an absentee ballot, and sending it through the mail, or dropping it off at Town Hall. But this year, nine Maine communities are trying something different, what's known as early voting.

In Scarborough Town Hall, James Conroy enters a room set up with 10 voting booths and checks in with election workers. Election Day is six days away but Scarborough is part of a pilot project that's letting people hit the polls early. "I'd rather come do it this way, at my convenience," he says.

Conroy is glad to be avoiding next Tuesday's crowds. "Too many people, too crowded and I hate shaking hands with everybody who wants me to vote for them. I call it running the gauntlet."

Over the years, Maine has encouraged voter participation with same-day registration at the polls, and by allowing people to vote absentee without requiring an excuse. But the Secretary of State's office is hoping the success of the pilot programs will create support for early voting -- which a third of states have already adopted.

"It is a cleaner process to vote early, it's a more expeditious way to do it and it's just as easy as voting absentee," says Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, who supports changing election law to allow early voting.

He says in contrast, absentee voting involves a lot of paperwork and ballots can't be counted until Election Day. And Dunlap says this has become a problem as more Mainers decide to vote absentee. So far this election season, about 95,000 absentee ballots have been requested.

"It's really quintupled the work load on local election officials and also for us as well," Dunlap says. "That's why we've been pushing the idea of early voting to bring that work load back within reason."

But Republican legislators have voiced concern about the security of early voting and whether it could increase the chance of voter fraud. Tody Justice, who is Scarborough's town clerk, says there's nothing to worry about. "There's a lot of checks and balances," she says.

At the end of the night, the ballots fed into the voting machine are removed and, like the absentee ballots, well-secured, Justice says.
"The ballots are actually taken out of the container and sealed in a blue blox that has a lock certified by the state as well as a seal," she says. "And then those boxes are also taken to the vault, and there's also another security system in place in the vault, so if anybody were to go into the vault not knowing it would set off an alarm over at the police station."

She says the state came up with guidelines for the communities participatipng in the pilot program. Most are in southern Maine and include Cumberland, Falmouth, Gorham, Saco, Scarborough and Standish. Other cities are Augusta, Bangor and Hallowell.

As of this afternoon, more than 900 Scarborough residents had cast their ballot through the early voting method. More than twice as many, 2,300, requested absentee ballots.

"You can go home and examine them and take your time," says Katherine Gibbons, who used to be an absentee voter. But then she heard about early voting and it was a no-brainer for her to do that instead. "I usually know exactly how I feel on the various issues and I'm happy to vote and now I'm done my duty."

For early voting to ever be adopted statewide, a constitutional resolution would be required, Dunlap says. Two-thirds of the Legislature would have to approve the measure, and then it would have to be put out to voters.