LINCOLNTON, Ga (WJBF)- Tomorrow night, the Lincoln County Board of Elections is expected to vote on whether or not to reduce their number of polling locations in the county from seven to just one.
The Board of Elections held a public hearing in September, according to its website. According to the notice, they believe it will make the voting process easier to only have one voting location.
Some election officials think having just one location will makes voting in the county easier by reducing the amount of work, number of personnel and cost of running an election. However, many are unhappy about the proposed change and say they don’t buy the reasons being given.
NewsChannel 6 spoke to several people that live in Lincoln County and they all have different opinions on why its happening, but agree on one thing: they don’t like it. They also said they didn’t know anything about the public hearing.
“I don’t like it at all, because we are such a long county. I think it makes better sense to have three. Now seven may be too much, but one is definitely not acceptable for especially the elderly coming all the way into town to do that,” said Shea Chamberlain, a resident of the county.
Some said the Board of Elections should leave the polling locations the way they are. Others think its an attempt at voter suppression and don’t believe the reasons election officials are giving for the proposed change.
“I don’t know why the commissioner (director) of the Board of Elections is saying this. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I think there is another reason she’s not telling us,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain said only one place to vote in a county the size of Lincoln County just doesn’t make sense. He also said he has a lot of questions that he plans to ask at tomorrow night’s meeting.
NewsChannel 6’s Kim Vickers did reach out several times to Lilvender Bolton, the Executive Director of the Board of Elections, but never got a response.
The meeting will be tomorrow evening at 6:30 at the Lincoln Center on 160 May Avenue.
