ID not mandatory to vote in Delaware, but help to keep lines down

While the state of Delaware does not require voters to bring a state ID to vote in tomorrow’s election, Delaware Election Commissioner Elaine Manlove said bringing identification will help keep the process moving smoothly.

 “If they have their drivers license or state ID, it just makes life easy,” said Manlove. “The poll worker can look at [the ID] and it’s easier for them to find [the voter’s] name on the list when they’re looking at it in print.”

If voters do not have an ID with them, they can still vote as long as their name is on the list at the polling location.

“As long as their name is on the poll list they’ll be allowed to vote, but they will have to sign an affidavit stating that they are who they say they are,” she said. “If everyone comes in and says I don’t have my ID and I need an affidavit, it’s going to slow the lines down dramatically so the fastest for all of us is to show ID.”

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If the voter’s name is not on the list at the polling center, they will have to call the state Board of Elections to find the correct polling place.

Manlove encourages voters to double check their polling location online by visiting the Department of Election’s Polling Place Locator.

Earlier this year a report by the Verified Voting Foundation, the Rutgers Law School Constitutional Litigation Clinic and Common Cause, put Delaware near the bottom of a list that ranked states being prepared to manage voting machine failures on Election Day.

The study urged low ranking states such as Delaware, South Carolina, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, to make changes to be better prepared for malfunctions.

With voting less than 24 hours away, Manlove said her office has been busy making sure things will run seamlessly.

“My office collects end of the night results, and we’ve been checking connectivity and testing, testing, testing to make sure everything works on election night,” she said.

Offices in Sussex, Kent and New Castle County, are also gearing up for tomorrow.

“The county offices are hiring poll workers and securing polling places, training poll workers, deploying the voting machines, preparing the ballots and getting them in the voting machines and getting the voting machines out to the polling places,” she said. “They’ve also been doing absentee by mail and in person at all three offices.”

Voting in Delaware will begin at 7 a.m.

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