The Starke County Election Board on Wednesday approved a list of potential vote center locations for the county commissioners’ consideration.
Preliminary plans call for seven vote centers. They would be at the Koontz Lake Property Owners Association Building, the Washington Township Community Building, the Hamlet Fire Station, the Bass Lake Fire Station, and the North Judson Fire Station. A few options were proposed for the Knox and San Pierre vote centers, but board members ultimately decided to continue using the Nancy J. Dembowski Community Center and the San Pierre Fire Station.
That list will be presented to the commissioners on November 4. It could then be adjusted, based on their recommendations.
Clerk Bernadette Welter-Manuel said she still hasn’t contacted the facilities to see if their representatives actually want to host a vote center, in part, because she learned that’s really the auditor’s job. “The auditor and myself together will draft a letter or speak to these people, but I can’t step in front of the auditor’s job, to talk to these people about voting there,” she said. “So that’s why it has not been done yet.” In any case, Welter-Manuel said she’d rather wait until the proposed sites are approved by the commissioners.
She also noted that all of the proposed vote centers are already being used as precinct polling places. “There’s nothing majorly changing for the places,” Welter-Manuel explained. “It’s more the voter changing, not, per se, what the place needs to do.”
Before a switch to vote centers can take effect, the election board still has to finalize a vote center plan. It’s expected to be presented to the public during the joint county council and commissioners meeting on November 18, followed by a 30-day public comment period. The election board would then vote on the plan in January. It would go into effect for the May 2020 primary.
