The Marion County Board of Supervisors heard reports last week from Urban Planning Consultant Michael Slaughter of Slaughter & Associates, GIS mapping consultant David Rankin, Circuit Clerk Janette Nolan and members of the Marion County Election Commission about needed changes in polling locations and voting precincts due to the annexation by the City of Columbia.
Slaughter reported on a slight tweak to supervisor districts one and two that would be made in order to move the National Guard polling location from the old armory to the community room at the BusinessPlex. The concern has been about flooding and conditions at the old armory building. The polling place can be moved to the BusinessPlex once the BusinessPlex is moved into district one from district two. This change involves no voters because no one lives in the BusinessPlex. Therefore, it will not affect any individual voter's district or supervisor.
"That precinct has a large number of registered voters, and we believe that the new location will serve the voters better as far as convenience, parking, entry to the polls and voter privacy. This also moves the polling location to a county building from a city building," Nolan said.
About 250 voters will be moved from their current polling locations to others, which will adjust the precinct lines to reflect the City of Columbia annexation and reduce the number of ballot styles in the election process. This will also minimize voters traveling to multiple locations for city and county elections. The largest move will be between Cedar Grove and Popetown, which will affect about 200 voters.
The Circuit Clerk's office will be sending letters of the changes to affected voters once they receive the order from the Board of Supervisors and make all the changes in the Statewide Election System.
