Doubts about adding a second place to vote

At Seneca’s meeting table, the consensus of the mayor and city council is to retain the Shaver Recreation Complex on S. 4th Street as the only polling place for municipal elections. Mayor Alexander, Mayor Pro-tem O’Kelley and most of the city’s other elected leaders say they don’t mind using both the Shaver complex and the Gignilliat Community Center on N. Townville Street as dual voting places to cast ballots in other elections, such as national elections. In their work session last night, the mayor and council decided to convey their feelings to Joy Scharich, the director of Oconee County Elections. Scharich recently appeared before the mayor and council and suggested they consider adding the Gignilliat Community Center as a second polling place for two of the city’s four precincts, while retaining Shaver as the polling place for the other two precincts. Scharich recommended a second polling place as a way to shorten lines when there’s a heavy turnout for offices, such as President or Oconee County Sheriff. Councilman Ronnie O’Kelley led last night’s discussion, saying, “I don’t have a problem moving the national polling, if you want to split up due to the crowds. But the local Seneca elections? It’s not that many people, you’re tying up two facilities, and some of the people say they’d rather it stay just where it is….” Others, such as Al Gaines, Denise Rozman, and Joel Ward, chimed in with sentiments along the lines of O’Kelley. However, Stuart Pohl said he thinks Seneca should have either one place for voting or two, but not one or the others depending on the type of election.