County merges city polling places to just 4
Yellowstone County commissioners voted unanimously this morning to consolidate most Billings polling places to just four sites. The change will take place in time for the June primary election, and further consolidation is likely.
For federal elections, most voters from the Heights to 24th Street West will vote at MetraPark, while separate polling places will be set up on the South Side, the southwest and northwest part of town.
Voters in Lockwood will continue to vote at Lockwood School and county voters outside Billings will keep their current polling places.
The motion approved by the commissioners establishes MetraPark as county election headquarters, and includes a provision to fold any of the remaining city polling places into MetraPark if more than 50 percent of the voters in that area choose to vote by mail ballot.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” Commissioner Jim Reno said.
Most residents who spoke at the meeting favored some sort of consolidation, but some were worried about access for low-income people and the disabled. Many from Lockwood urged the commissioners to keep a polling place in Lockwood.
The commissioners considered four options, from having everyone vote at MetraPark to establishing eight polling places on a jigsaw map of the city.
More than half of voters already vote by mail ballot, and polling places are only used for federal elections, said elections administrator Duane Winslow. Consolidating the 37 polling places allows for less confusion, more control and less need for help, since the county is finding it harder to recruit election judges.
The county is working to find locations for the polling places besides MetraPark and Lockwood School, Winslow said. On Election Day, voters descending on MetraPark will find lots of parking, tables for last-minute registration and ample room to move around, Winslow said.
Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore told the commissioners that consolidation has worked well in Great Falls. She said that her county faced the same concerns in 2007 that Yellowstone County faces now, but that voters were in and out of the county’s exhibition center in six to eight minutes. She said buses ran to the center from the main bus station every 30 minutes, so voters who couldn’t drive still had a way to get to the polls.
“It has worked well for Cascade County, and it will work well for you, too,” Moore said.
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