Dateline: April 28, 2005

Hearing favors cutting number of voting boxes

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

Donley County citizens spoke in favor of a proposal to reduce the number of polling places available to local voters during a public hearing last Thursday.

 Faced with a costly federal mandate to install Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines in each polling place by January 1, 2006, county commissioners have proposed consolidating voting boxes within their four precincts to bring the total number of boxes from nine to five.

County Judge Jack Hall told the citizens that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with the way Donley County conducts its elections but that changes are being forced by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which requires all counties to have one accessible voting machine in each polling place by January 1, 2006.

“I think our voting system works just fine,” Hall said, “but we’ve been told that we have to change.”

HAVA requires a system to be in place that allows voters to view and correct their ballots, alerts voters of an over vote or under vote, accepts votes from voters with a full range of disabilities.

DREs are expected to cost $5,500 each in addition to the cost for software, setup, and special apparatuses for the blind.

Commissioners have proposed consolidating Box 103 at Martin Baptist Church with Box 101 at the Bairfield Activity Center, Box 301 at the Clarendon Community Center and Box 302 at Lelia Lake with Box 303 at the Hedley Lions Hall, and Box 402 at the McClellan residence with Box 401 at Community Bank. Boxes 201 at the Courthouse and 102 at Howardwick City Hall would be left unchanged.

During the hearing, resident Linda Kay Bell asked officials what other counties have done to deal with HAVA. The answer was that some counties have already consolidated, and County Clerk Fay Vargas had heard of one county that had redrawn their precinct lines so that they intersected at the county courthouse, thus creating the need for just one polling place and one DRE.

Donley County can’t do that at this time, officials said, since precinct lines are only redrawn following each decennial US Census.

County Republican Chairman Tom Stauder said, “I think it would be sad if we had to spend all this money and only three people used it.”

Stauder also urged commissioners to consolidate to four voting places to keep the cost as low as possible.

Resident Ron Lamberth raised concerns about the unit price for PCs and printers presented at the meeting, but county officials said they are required to use only vendors who have been certified by the State of Texas.

Other citizens offered alternative suggestions about the numbers and locations of polling places, including consolidating all of Precinct 1 at the Bairfield Activity Center, closing the voting boxes at Martin and Howardwick, and consolidating Precinct 3 boxes at Lelia Lake, closing those boxes in Clarendon and Hedley.

Alternatively, citizens suggested maintaining two boxes in Precinct 3 with one in Clarendon and one in either Lelia Lake or Hedley.

Box 303 in Hedley was the third busiest polling place in the county during the 2004 election, drawing 169 voters on Election Day compared to 127 voters at Box 102 at Howardwick City Hall and 245 voters at Box 201 at the Courthouse.

The only commonality between the commissioners’ proposal and the ideas put forth by citizens at the hearing was that the county should definitely consolidate boxes to save money and that Box 402 at the McClellan House in northern Donley County, which only had 19 voters in 2004, should definitely be consolidated with Box 401 at Community Bank in Clarendon.

Six citizens and five county officials attended last week’s hearing. Commissioners will discuss the issue further in a called meeting this Friday at 1:30 p.m.