It's bad enough that they will be casting ballots by computer touch screen. Now, election organizers are suggesting doing away with familiar neighborhood polling places, replacing the small ballot locations with larger "voting centers."

"We're not in the '50s anymore," said Davis County Elections Coordinator Pat Beckstead. "Our lives have changed. We're more mobile. People are on the go. We need to make this more convenient. We've got to change. We've got to grow."

More than a self-improvement exercise, county clerks and state elections officials are pitching the new idea as a way to save money. Utah's $28 million share of federal election reform money will not cover the cost of all the new voting machines that county clerks estimate they will need for the 2008 presidential election.

"We can't afford to buy enough [voting machines] to fill each polling place," State Elections Director Michael Cragun told members of the Legislature's Government Operations Interim Committee on Wednesday.

State elections managers figure combining early voting with consolidated polling locations will reduce pressure on the 7,500 machines the state plans to buy.

The computerized voting machines that the state wants to purchase from Diebold can retrieve ballots from across the state. So, a Davis County resident could vote on his lunch hour at a Salt Lake City voting center for his Clearfield City Council race. In the long run, said Deputy State Elections Director Steve MacDonald, Utah voters will have an easier time casting their ballots.

Before any of that can happen, Utah lawmakers will have to change state law. County clerks and state elections managers Wednesday asked legislators to consider allowing voters to cast ballots early on the computer voting machines, letting clerks consolidate several precincts into larger voting centers and permitting voters to cast computer ballots from remote locations.

Utah Association of Counties Director Brent Gardner said much of the cost of the Help America Vote Act that Congress passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election has shifted to local governments. Counties are trying to buy enough expensive voting machines to meet voters' needs while training staff to maintain and store them.

In Washington County, Clerk/Auditor Calvin Robison has added 20 to 25 new precincts since state leaders adopted an election plan - new precincts that will need voting machines. And in Salt Lake County, Gardner said, just storing about 2,000 machines will cost county taxpayers $3 million.

"There are some huge costs out there that taxpayers are going to have to come up with," Gardner said. "Anything the Legislature can do to help reduce those costs will benefit the taxpayer."

But some lawmakers warned election officials not to move too fast at the risk of leaving out less tech-savvy, homebound segments of the state's population. Kearns Republican Rep. Eric Hutchings questioned who the computerized voting centers will benefit - voters or county clerks who will have less paperwork and expense.

"This doesn't necessarily get polling places closer to the people," Hutchings said. "We need to be very careful we don't disenfranchise seniors. As difficult as it is for a blind person to vote, it's even more difficult to convince my grandma to use a computer."

Committee staff will begin drafting legislation.