Board of Elections aims for new polling locations in busy election year
The Chatham County Board of Elections moved to create new polling locations at its monthly meeting Monday, March 18, approving a new building for a Waters Avenue polling location and petitioning for three new voting places in south and west Chatham County.
The petition approved unanimously by the board will result in a collaboration with the voter registration office to draw lines for two new polling locations in Pooler, and another in Savannah near Bloomingdale. The plans for new polling locations in these areas will help prepare for impending growth.
"We need to be realistic that we are going to need additional polling in the northwestern and western area of Chatham," said Billy Wooten, the BOE's supervisor of elections.
While the board has authority to draw the boundaries for new polls, the voter registration office has the data to show where people are registered. That data then informs where to draw the boundaries.
While the locations are not yet set, two potential options are a room in the city library and another somewhere behind the Costco in Pooler, Wooten said. Pooler Mayor Karen Williams has been active in working with the BOE on increasing polling options in the city.
"I am going to be helping him with that, trying to find two more locations for polling so that this November everybody has the right to vote and not wait in line for hours and hours," Williams said.
The potential new Savannah location will serve neighborhoods now voting in the Bloomingdale at the W.C. Strozier Community Center, 202 E. Moore St. There are about 3,000 registered voters in the Bloomingdale location, but about 400 of those voters have Savannah residences, Wooten said.
"My suggestion has been that we figure out where those Savannah residents are, and we capture them in a precinct," Wooten said.
New building for former Oasis polling location
Polling location 2-11, typically hosted at Oasis of Hope Community Church, is being moved after the BOE was notified the property is being sold. The precinct serves both sides of the Waters Avenue corridor, Wooten said.
The new location will be at 1116 E. 57th St., which is the former RainFire Church Building. It's been purchased by Coastal Cathedral Church of God, which will use it as a mission campus in that area of town and has agreed to make it available as a polling location, Wooten said.
The precinct has about 1,600 registered voters and is a precinct with a lot of active voters, Wooten said. The new location will be walkable for many communities along the corridor, much like the Oasis location was.
"It would become the new polling location for precinct 2-11, which is a real good precinct in that part of town," Wooten said.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Board of Elections aims for new polling locations in busy election year
