Stephen Morse | Phila. cleans up its polling places

Imagine being able to vote in major American elections without stepping foot outside your front door, without the aid of the Internet or some type of telepathy. Just put on a bathrobe and walk into the voting booth during the commercials of The Jerry Springer Show: That's all it takes.

But this isn't a dream - it's Philadelphia.

Until this year, thousands of Philadelphians were able to vote in private households that doubled as polling places on Election Day - including the homes of party leaders and candidates.

Times are changing: This is the first election in which voting inside the homes of party leaders and candidates in Philly is forbidden. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Nov. 2, "As a result of lawsuits and a new state law, the polling places they went to for years have moved." These changes will affect the voting locales of some 70,000 Philadelphians.

The watchdog group Committee of Seventy, a self-described "independent, non-partisan organization committed to a permanent campaign of improving government in the city of Philadelphia," stands in favor of these changes but worries about their implementation. The organization's CEO and president, Zach Stalberg, said, "We are not opposed to the moving of polling places; we are a bit afraid of confusion next week. A lot of people have voted in the same place for many years and are going to be startled that the site has changed."

Another popular polling venue in Philadelphia has also come under fire: The corner bar. If we could vote at Smokes or Blarneys, turnout might in fact be better than anything Penn Leads The Vote could put together. But, alas, a new state law was passed this year that prohibits voting in locations where liquor is served. And even before this law, voting in a (formerly) smoke-filled bar was just plain sketchy.

Not everyone agrees.

"Voting in bars is better than not voting at all," Charles Mirarchi, the deputy city commissioner of Philadelphia, said. If the only place they had was a bar, and nobody else offered their place, then the alternative would be that they have to travel farther to vote."

Until this year, partisan ward leaders have been kind enough to host voters inside their own homes to cast their ballots.

That sounds pretty intimidating to me.

And, thanks to a lawsuit that resulted in greater rights for physically handicapped voters, some 71 polling locations have been moved to places of better accessibility.

"If, in the past, we used a place that wasn't handicap accessible, it was because it was the only place available," Mirarchi said. Only now are polling places being moved from individuals' basements to more logical and accessible places like schools and firehouses.

As a former judge of elections and inspector of elections in the 27th district here at Penn, I have witnessed people attempt to vote multiple times in one day and a ward leader's fiancee physically opening the voting booths in my district 12 hours before the election. Let's face it: This city has had some major electoral problems.

Think about the heated Mayoral election of 2003. Sam Katz lost to Mayor John Street by a mere 9,400 votes. If polling places had been more accessible, a different man might have been elected mayor.

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