Special committee meets to discuss voting centers in Warrick Co.

WARRICK Co., Ind. (WFIE) - A 14 News follow up to a story we first reported on Saturday.

[READ: Warrick Co. officials consider voting centers for future elections]

A committee met in Warrick County on Tuesday morning, mulling over details about voting centers in future elections.

Some members of the committee raised concerns.

“We don’t want to close the schools so that an election day can go on in the facility. So we would be willing to provide the separation if we knew which schools,” Todd Armstrong the Assistant Superintendent of Warrick County Schools said.

And more concerns were raised over changing a system, too fast, that voters are used to using.

“I would like to see us go through an election cycle where we could actually know what we’re talking about like, ‘ok, this is what’s going to happen with these voting centers.’ I don’t see a rush to go out and cut these centers right now,” Mayor Charlie Wyatt said.

Officials say having voting centers instead of assigned precincts would have several benefits, including convenience, flexibility and reduced wait times.

Some members of the committee worried about the initial cost to advertise the change.

“Some of the counties had a lot of upfront expense because they had to buy a lot of equipment,” explained Andrew Skinner, the President of the Warrick County Election Board. “They didn’t have the poll-pads, the I-PADS that we had already. Our expense is going to be advertising. We can offset that expense because if we reduce the locations, we reduce the number of workers. That’s less workers to train and less workers to pay.”

Officials say before they make any concrete decisions they want to make sure there’s a plan in place and that they hear from voters in future committee meetings.

The committee’s next meeting will be on May 11, and we’re told members will try to pinpoint where voting centers will be placed in the county and how many.

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