A list of potential vote center locations was presented to the Starke County Election Board Wednesday. Clerk Bernadette Welter-Manuel’s proposal calls for seven vote centers. They would be located 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. Welter-Manuel presented some options for the Knox and San Pierre vote centers.
The Knox polling place could remain at the Nancy J. Dembowski Community Center, or it could be moved to County Annex Building No. 1 or the south side fire station. She’s also looking into using All Saints Catholic Church as San Pierre’s vote center, to avoid the issue of firefighters having to move trucks out of the way for voting at the fire station. “You had a commissioner out there two years ago demanding the trustee have the trucks removed,” Welter-Manuel added.
But Board Member Harrison Fields had a few concerns. For one thing, he felt that Welter-Manuel should have contacted representatives from all of the facilities before including them on the list. “You started this plan with these places,” Fields said. “Don’t you think you should be contacting them to see?”
“If we weren’t already voting there, I would have,” Welter-Manuel replied, “but we’re already voting there.”
Fields also seemed to be under the impression that the vote centers would be open for several days. Welter-Manuel explained that they would only be open during regular voting hours on Election Day, except for two planned satellite absentee voting locations, which would each be open one Saturday before an election.
The clerk said she hasn’t picked the satellite early voting sites yet, but she recommended putting them in Hamlet or Koontz Lake, as well as North Judson or San Pierre. “You have 28 days to vote here in the courthouse,” Welter-Manuel explained. “We don’t have anything on the outskirts of the county, so it makes more sense to take the satellites to the outskirts for the one day, where you can come to Knox for 28 days to vote.”
In any case, Fields said he wasn’t ready to approve the list of vote centers yet. “I mean, this is very important, and I’m not going to make a quick decision,” he said.
Board President Marcia Bedrock said she plans to call for a vote at the October 23 election board meeting, so the proposed vote center locations could go to the county commissioners for approval on November 4. Meanwhile, Welter-Manuel said she also plans to have a draft version of the vote center plan ready for the rest of the election board by October 23. Her goal is to hold the required public hearing on the plan during the December 2 commissioners meeting, so that it could be implemented for the May 2020 primary.
If you want to learn more about vote centers or weigh in on the preliminary plans, the Starke County Election Board will hold another town hall meeting tonight at 6:30 at the North Judson-Wayne Township Public Library.
