Eu Cites Support for Law on Coordinating Poll Closings

California Secretary of State March Fong Eu on Monday told members of a congressional elections subcommittee that she would back a law coordinating poll closing times across the country to prevent voters in the West from learning results of national elections before they have voted.

Eu said in 1980 about 400,000 voters, about 5% of the total number of people who did vote, stayed away from the polls after broadcast networks predicted early in the day that Ronald Reagan would win the presidency.

Representatives of the major networks have since agreed not to project results before polls have closed if a uniform poll closing law is passed by Congress.

Eu spoke in Los Angeles before members of the House Administration subcommittee on elections, which is hearing testimony from state officials around the country on the feasibility of a uniform poll closing law. Eu said she favored closing the polls on the East Coast at 10 p.m. and in the West at 7 p.m. so that voting on both coasts would end simultaneously.

As a refinement of that approach, she suggested that far western states be allowed to stay on Daylight Savings Time until after November elections, thus, narrowing the time difference between East and West coasts from three hours to two. Under the approach, she said, polls in the East could close at 9 p.m. and polls in the West at 7.

Polls in California close at 8 p.m. Prior to 1967, however, they closed at 7.