After Habersham County voters waited for hours, some at the wrong polling places, during the November 2014 election, the Elections Board is considering reopening a few of the precincts they closed.
Now Habersham reported back in December about “a barrage of criticism, emails and phone calls made to local election officials after the November election.” Some voters showed up to the polls unprepared without proper ID others got confused because the county had closed 12 precincts and forced everybody to vote in just two locations. Lines were out the door at both and some waited up to 3 hours to cast a ballot.
At the time, there were no plans to restore the lost precincts. Apparently, that’s now changed.
Habersham County Elections Superintendent Laurel Ellison presented a plan to increase the number of polling locations at a work session for County Commissioners in Clarkesville on Monday. “Batesville and Cool Springs will be consolidated at Amy’s Creek Fire Department. The old Falling Water precinct will join Fork and Demorest and vote in the meeting room in the basement of the Demorest Fire Department. Mud Creek, View and voters from the City of Alto will go to B.C. Grant Baptist Church.”
This proposal would expand the number of Habersham County voting precincts from 2 up to 5 including the Ruby C. Fulbright Aquatic Center and the Cornelia Depot. You’ll also have other, municipal-only, voting locations in Clarkesville, Mt. Airy and Baldwin for city elections.
The number of voters at each precinct would drop from more than 10-thousand at each of the two current locations down to between 1254 and 4195 at each of the 5 proposed polling places.
Habersham County Commissioners and the Elections Board will need to sign off on the proposal before it can move forward.
