Come 2006 you may be able to vote for your favorite candidate up to two weeks before Election Day, or vote while you shop at your local grocery store or mall.

Utah lawmakers are considering changes to state election code to allow what's termed "early voting."

They will also consider letting county clerks —who run elections for federal, state and local offices — consolidate dozens of voting precincts into one or more large "central voting" areas such as malls or sporting event halls.

The changes would be more convenient for voters — always a good thing, Michael Cragun, state elections director, told a legislative committee Wednesday.

But the real driving force behind the change is money.

Utah is getting $26 million to buy new, federally mandated electronic voting machines. That will buy maybe 7,500 machines. But hundreds of additional machines will be needed for voters to avoid long lines on Election Day.

The way around a lot of unhappy voters (who, by the way, also elect legislators), is to spread out the times and places where those voters can vote.

And a possible way to do that would be to let voters vote up to two weeks before Election Day and to allow citizens to vote anywhere in the county.

For example, said Steve MacDonald, deputy elections director, he lives in Draper but works at the other end of the valley on Capitol Hill.

New technology would allow him to vote during the day, maybe on his lunch hour, in a central voting area, maybe the Delta Center, up to two weeks before Election Day. His unique Draper city ballot would be stored along with all other Salt Lake County jurisdictions in the electronic voting machine — called a DRE.

He could vote, see an electronic printout of that vote, be immediately recorded as having voted (so he couldn't go home to Draper and vote again later), and do it at the Delta Center, elections experts said.

Members of the Government Operations Interim Committee decided to draft legislation that would allow such sweeping changes to traditional Utah voting practices.

But final decisions are far from over.

Over the past two years, several legislative committees have refused to allow early voting. One reason is that it would make some campaigns — especially low-budget legislative campaigns — change tactics.

Specifically, legislators wouldn't be able to effectively do their traditional literature drops the weekend before Election Day — for up to half the voters might have already cast their ballots in early voting.

But Cragun said numerous studies in states with early voting show that the process doesn't favor one political party over another, doesn't necessarily favor one candidate over another, doesn't affect voter turnout by that much (a slight increase, perhaps), and is greatly liked by voters.