The Starke County Commissioners decided this week to not allow the number of polling places to be reduced from 17 to 10 in this year’s May Primary election. The Election Board members were told that the reduction would be too much of a change, and that the Commissioners would rather have it phased in during another election year. Commissioner Dan Bridegroom said they asked the Board to sit down with Democrat Chairman Ken Wallace and Republican Chairman Brenda Stanojevich and they opposed the proposal.
“I agree with that wholeheartedly,” said Bridegroom. “We did ask them to go back and they both went and sat with the election committee. The consensus was the timing is not right. We’re coming up to what could be one of the most controversial elections in a long time for a national election. The last thing we want to do is make it harder for a person to vote.”
Evelyn Skronski, a member of the election board, said yesterday that she did not expect the proposal to come up again. The next election after 2012 would be in 2014, and she thought the Commissioners would not be agreeable to accepting the proposal then either.
