Elections Board sets date for vote on Athens precinct changes

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections sets September 12 as the date for a vote on a plan to relocate a half-dozen Athens voting precincts, doing so in advance of elections that will take place next year. The first of those elections will be the presidential preference primaries that are set for March of 2024.

From the Athens-Clarke Co government website…

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections is scheduled to make changes to precinct boundary lines and some polling locations that will go into effect beginning with the 2024 Presidential Preference Primary Election set for March 12, 2024.

Residents’ voting districts will not change as a part of the process – only the location at which some voters would vote in-person on Election Day.

Proposed changes include adjusting boundary lines for all voting precincts, moving six Election Day polling locations, and adding one new polling location.

All voters affected by any changes approved by the Board of Elections will receive a new precinct card in the mail at least 90 days prior to the 2024 Presidential Preference Primary Election.

The Board of Elections will vote to adopt the proposed changes at its regular scheduled meeting on Tuesday, September 12 at the Athens-Clarke County Planning Auditorium (120 W. Dougherty Street) at 4:30 PM. Anyone objecting to the changes must file their objections with the Board of Elections prior to the meeting on September 12.

The proposed polling location changes consist of the following:

• Voters of Precinct 1A, currently assigned to the Winterville Train Depot, would vote at the Winterville Community Center (371 N. Church Street).
• Voters of Precinct 4A, currently assigned to ACCGov’s Multimodal Transportation Center, would vote at the Athens-Ben Epps Airport Community Room (1010 Ben Epps Drive).
• Voters of Precinct 5D, currently assigned to ACCGov’s Fleet Management Office, would vote at the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia (185 Newton Bridge Road).
• Voters of Precinct 6B, currently assigned to Georgia Square Mall, would vote at the ACCGov Cooperative Extension Office (275 Cleveland Road).
• Voters of Precinct 6D, currently assigned to Fire Station #4, would become part of Precinct 5A and vote at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School (1150 Oglethorpe Avenue). Precinct 6D would be removed as a precinct.
• Voters of Precinct 7C, currently assigned to Fire Station #3, will vote at Milledge Avenue Baptist Church (1690 S. Milledge Avenue).
• A new precinct with a number and letter combination to be determined at the Miriam Moore Community Center (410 McKinley Drive)
• Maps of the updated precinct boundaries and existing / proposed polling locations can be found at www.accgov.com/elections.

With the need to relocate the current polling locations at the Georgia Square Mall and Transit Multimodal Transportation Center due to redevelopment, voting space challenges, and parking issues, the board collaborated with the ACCGov Geospatial Information Office to study the entire territory of Athens-Clarke County for other potential polling location changes and precinct line changes.

Part of the process involved considering the number of registered voters by Census blocks to determine geographically central areas for potential polling locations and possible shifts to precinct lines to better balance the number of voters per precinct.

The Board of Elections conducted four work sessions during the spring and held two public hearings in June to determine recommended sites that included necessary voting space and parking at future locations, as well as more central polling site voting locations and more evenly dispersed voter numbers.

For additional information or questions, contact the Athens-Clarke County Elections Department at 706-613-3150 or visit www.accgov.com/elections.

Resources:

• Notice of Proposed Polling Changes
• Notice of Proposed Precinct Line Changes
• Current Proposed Precinct Boundaries Map
• Proposed Precinct Boundaries Map – Census Blocks
• Proposed Precinct Boundaries Map – Total Voters

Elections Webpage

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