{"id":9597,"date":"2014-07-09T13:49:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T17:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=9597"},"modified":"2014-07-09T13:52:23","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T17:52:23","slug":"precinct-consolidation-table-and-board-of-elections-2014-07-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/precinct-consolidation-table-and-board-of-elections-2014-07-22.html","title":{"rendered":"Precinct consolidation table and Board of Elections 2014-07-22"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nStill 9 precincts\r\n\r\nthis year<\/a> like\r\n\r\nlast year<\/a>, but one of the polling locations\r\n\r\nhas changed<\/a> (Pine Grove to Trinity),\r\nand the precinct boundaries have changed.\r\nYet again the board of elections plans\r\n\r\nstill more fiddling with precincts this year<\/a>.\r\nThere was a Special Called Board of Elections meeting yesterday,\r\nand a regular meeting is\r\n\r\n9AM Tuesday 22 July 2014<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nLet’s update\r\n\r\nlast year’s polling place table<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n
2014<\/th>\r\n2013<\/th>\r\n2012<\/th>\r\n2011<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 1\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 1<\/td>Pct 1<\/td><\/td>Hahira Historical Society<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/td><\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 1<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Newsome St. Church<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 2<\/td>Pct 2<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 2<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Old Pine Grove Elementary School Gym<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 2\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/td>Pct 3<\/td><\/td>Trinity Presbyterian Church<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/td><\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 3<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Westminister Presbyterian Church<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 3\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 3<\/td>Pct 4<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 4<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Northside Baptist Church Gym<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/td>Pct 5<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 5<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Jaycee Park Activities Building<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 4\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 4<\/td>Pct 6<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 6<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Naylor City Hall<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/td>Pct 7<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 7<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Wood Valley Community Center<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 5\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 5<\/td>Pct 8<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 8<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Rainwater Conference Center<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 6\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 6<\/td>Pct 10<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 10<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Mildred Hunter Community Center<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 7\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 7<\/td>Pct 9<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 9<\/a>\r\n<\/td>New Clyattville Fire Station<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 8\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 8<\/td>Pct 11<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 11<\/a>\r\n<\/td>Dasher City Hall<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
\r\nPct 9\r\n<\/td>\r\nPct 9<\/td>Pct 12<\/td>\r\n\r\nPrecinct 12<\/a>\r\n<\/td>South Lowndes Recreation Center<\/td><\/tr>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/center>\r\n

\r\nConfused yet?\r\nEven the precincts with the same polling places may not have\r\nthe same precinct boundaries, so you may have changed precincts without moving.\r\nFor example, last year that was I was in Pine Grove Precinct,\r\nbut now I’m in Hahira.\r\n

\r\nSee\r\n\r\nVALORGIS<\/a> for current precinct boundaries.\r\nVALORGIS lists 12 polling places, which may be because\r\n\r\nsome of them are only for municipal elections<\/a>.\r\nBut there are four municipal polling places Hahira, Remerton, Dasher,\r\nLake Park) and 4 + 9 != 12, apparently because Dasher City Hall is both\r\na municipal polling place and a county polling place.\r\n

\r\nAnd that’s\r\n\r\ndown from 35 precincts in 2004 to 9 now<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nWhile canvassing, one of the most frequent questions I got was\r\n“where do I vote?” and the answer was often “at a new place this year”.\r\nThat is quite confusing to people and is enough to convince\r\nquite a few not to bother voting.\r\nWhich is a problem.\r\n

\r\nThis is why we see news like\r\n\r\nLowndes second worst in Georgia for voting access<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nHm, here’s Lowndes County Election Supervisor Deb Cox in 2012\r\nquoted by the VDT as saying\r\n\r\n“Provisional ballots could \u2018tilt\u2019 races”<\/a> (by Quinten Plummer, 6 November 2012), yet more recently\r\nshe’s said provisional ballots are not a sign of voting problems.\r\n

\r\nHere’s Deb Cox explaining the Board of Elections budget\r\n\r\nat the county budget meeting 10 March 2014<\/a>.\r\nI don’t think she said much about changing precincts again.\r\n

\r\nPreviously when I’ve talked to her she’s said the problem is\r\nit costs a lot to keep numerous precincts open when fewer\r\npeople are voting early, and the plan is to get\r\ndown to a small number of precincts (3?) and then let everybody\r\nvote at whichever precinct they want to.\r\n

\r\nThe county already has the technology to do that, since they\r\nuse it in early voting at the Board of Elections. I seem to\r\nrecall Deb told me the state had to permit the county to allow\r\nvoters to vote at any precinct. Might be worth asking her for\r\nconfirmation of that.\r\n

\r\nIf we could just go straight to vote-anywhere, that would eliminate\r\nmost of the provisional ballot issue, since it’s caused by people\r\nconfused by the annual precinct changes.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Still 9 precincts this year like last year, but one of the polling locations has changed (Pine Grove to Trinity), and the precinct boundaries have changed. Yet again the board of elections plans still more fiddling with precincts this year. There was a Special Called Board of Elections meeting yesterday, and a regular meeting is […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[49,70,20,3],"tags":[1424,8721,8728,8701,8702,8710,12,7,2046,1394,8700,6],"class_list":["post-9597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-ethics","category-law","category-transparency","tag-board-of-elections","tag-elections","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-polling-places","tag-precincts","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2uN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9603,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions\/9603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}