Early voting, back on

A bill to allow voters to register three days before an election is back.

Last week, Senate leaders pulled the bill — for the third time — after state Auditor Les Merritt told them that a preliminary investigation showed problems with the state voter rolls.

But after an hour and a half committee meeting this afternoon, a Senate committee decided to put the bill back on the agenda.

Merritt said that his staff is not done reviewing voter registrations and may yet find explanations for anomalies it has already found. He said he didn't want a legislator to complain that he withheld it.

"Somebody could say 'You had all this information and didn't share it?'" he said.

But Sen. Dan Clodfelter said that Merritt's report was incomplete and should not affect the bill. He also cautioned against interfering with the legislative process without good reason.

"If you're going to blow the whistle on something, you need to know whether there's a problem or not," he said.