County needs law change to save money on equipment
Consolidation of polling sites would reduce number of machines needed

By Pam Tharp   Palladium-Item   19 December 2004
LIBERTY, Ind. If Union County wants to save significant money on new voting equipment, it probably will have to get legislation passed this year.

Moving to centralized polling sites would save money, but it also might mean more absentee voting and additional training for poll workers to make sure voters use the right machines for their precinct.

Creating three or four polling sites for its 10 precincts would save Union County money because only one touch-screen machine equipped to serve visually impaired voters would be needed per polling site.

The law now allows a polling place to be outside the precinct if no accessible location is available inside the precinct and if the polling site is within one mile of the precinct boundary. That would allow Union County to combine all four precincts in Center Township into a single location, Council President Pat Gentry told the council Thursday.

Additional precincts could be combined if the law was changed to a five-mile distance, Gentry said. That's an idea that's gaining support from the secretary of state's office, if that distance is needed to find an accessible site, said Kate Shepherd, communications director.

All polling places must be fully accessible to the disabled by Jan. 1, 2006, to comply with the Help America Vote Act, Shepherd said.

"We would be supportive of discussing expanding the limit to five miles but it will take legislation," Shepherd said.

Shepherd couldn't say whether extending the distance for polling sites will be part of the secretary of state's legislative agenda for this year because she said it hasn't been completed.

The secretary of state's office has heard from several counties on the subject, particularly rural counties, which are looking into consolidating polling places for financial reasons, Shepherd said.

Morgan County, where Martinsville is located, consolidated many of its precincts into multiple polling sites this year.

"We had to because we didn't have nearly enough polling places that were accessible," said election deputy Sherele Walters.

Four precincts in Martinsville vote in a single location, as do voters in three precincts in Monrovia. Rural township precincts have been combined in groups of two, Walters said. The change seems to have increased absentee voting in Morgan County, she said.

"We got a lot of absentee voting here anyway, but this may have increased it. Some people already thought their polling place was too far away and the new one was even farther, so many voted absentee," Walters said.

Combined polls are supposed to be divided so each precinct has its own voting area and voters must vote in their own precinct.

Cuyahoga County in Cleveland, Ohio, had problems in the Nov. 2 election because about 1,000 voters at a combined polling place cast votes on the wrong punch card machines, the Associated Press reported.

Presidential candidates were in a different order on the ballot, depending on the precinct, so ballots were misread if the ballot was voted in one precinct and then read on the other precinct's machine.