Elections office leaving courthouse

Feb. 25—MERCER — The Mercer County elections department is moving to an office outside the courthouse, where it will have more space to do its work.

The new elections office at 130 N. Pitt St., is a block northeast of the courthouse in the back of what used to be a car dealership. It is connected to the elections warehouse, where the county stores machines that count paper ballots and devices that mark ballots.

County commissioners voted unanimously last week to pay $48,000 to lease both buildings from Gallisath LLC in Mercer. The agreement costs $4,000 a month, covers 4,000 square feet of office space, a larger warehouse and 12 parking spaces. The lease begins on March 1, but elections Director Thad Hall estimates the department will move in mid-March.

"It'll be great because the big thing for us is we just don't have enough space here," Hall said.

The department is now crammed into the southwest corner of the courthouse basement.

"A lot of the things we do are mass activities," Hall said.

In addition to conducting several mailings a year, the office assembles materials for poll workers and prepares machines for all 90 precincts.

In the current location, the department's facilities crew has to bring all the materials from the warehouse to the office. The department then takes over most of the courthouse basement. In the new space, Hall said election workers will be able to prepare everything and leave materials in the warehouse.

"Right now, we can't leave anything out overnight here because the next morning, the courthouse has to function," Hall said. "When we stuffed bags for the last election, they were going from the assembly room all the way to the elevators. That's a lot of spreading out."

The new space will let the elections department operate in its warehouse and leave at the end of the work day, knowing that everything workers leave out at night will be there in the morning.

Hall said that will help workers avoid late nights.

"We were here until two in the morning packing bags for the election," Hall said. "With our warehouse, we would never have to do that because we could come back in the next morning and finish it. We wouldn't be rushed against time to get everything and stack it in our assembly room so we can lock it up."

When the department conducts mass mailings, it has a folding machine in the corner of its office but no large table to lay out materials. Hall said there will be a large work space in the new office, with room for temporary employees that are needed only for general elections.

"So it's just being able to have that whole space is going to be amazing," Hall said.

The former Ben Bissett car dealership was given a makeover to fit the elections office. The warehouse, behind the office space, has a dock for loading and unloading machines without interrupting election department staff work.

Hall said the new alignment will even help the department work more quickly on election night because poll workers will be able to drop off ballots and tallying software more easily.

"It'll be much simpler because we'll have so much space to unpack the bags," Hall said. "It's going to be great. It's going to be a lot easier."

Hall said moving will not affect operations, because workers will perform the move in stages.

"We're excited about it and we're hoping we'll be a lot more efficient," Hall said.

Follow Melissa Klaric on Twitter and Facebook @HeraldKlaric, email: mklaric@sharonherald.com