Voters in Forrest County District 4 who had previously voted at the Salvation Army building on Hwy. 49 South will have a new voting precinct.
During Monday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors, the board voted unanimously to consolidate the Salvation Army precinct with the Lillie Burney precinct. The Salvation Army building sustained heavy damage in the Jan. 21, 2017, tornado and repairs to the structure still aren’t complete; therefore its availability as a working precinct is not a possibility.
District 4 Election Commissioner Faye Noble was against the move, citing a number of reasons during the meeting.
According to Noble, the Burney precinct has 1,271 active voters and 160 inactive voters while the SA precinct had 1,768 active and 243 inactive. By combining these precincts, the new precinct would have 3,642 active voters, which Noble felt would cause problems with inadequate parking, longer lines, which would upset and anger those required to wait and the safety of children attending the south Hattiesburg school.
Noble noted that the Church of Christ on Helveston Road had agreed to serve as a precinct and work with the county.
“They have adequate parking, handicap ramps, parking and accessible bathrooms,” said Noble.
“Combining these two precincts just isn’t a good idea for voters,” said Noble. “Just think about putting 3,600 voters in one place is not good. There will be long lines and you know there will be voters getting agitated, upset, angry and will leave and not vote.”
It was noted that since new voter registration cards would need to go out to voters two months in advance, a decision needed to be made quickly.
The next election requiring the use of the precinct would be June 5 for congressional races – Rep. Steven Palazzo and Sen. Roger Wicker – and is considered an off-year election.
For the May 22 vote on the Hattiesburg Public School District bond issue, one precinct has been designated in each of the city’s districts for voting. For this area, Rowan School has been designated.
Supervisor Rod Woullard, who oversees District 4, addressed each of Noble’s issues.
In regard to the mailing of new registration cards, Woullard said that would be required whether they moved the precinct to the church or to the school.
Lillie Burney is currently being used as a voting district and Woullard said he would prefer that.
“I would rather see our people vote somewhere there is already a precinct than to develop a brand new precinct that they’ve never voted before and that they may or may not vote again.”
As far as parking is concerned, he said while Burney doesn’t have a lot of paved parking, there is a lot of open field parking.
“I’ve carefully looked at this,” he said.
Woullard noted that if 33 percent of active voters came out, “which we haven’t seen in a very very long time,” that would still be just 1,188 people and “that’s about the tops that we’re going to get, so I feel comfortable that Lillie Burney can more than handle that. And we have the space inside that’s twice the space we are working with right now.”
Woullard said he appreciated Noble’s concerns and recommendations, but “I think overall this will work better for everybody concerned.”
Woullard said if the church were used, it would not be a permanent site. If the Salvation Army is able to get back up and running, Woullard said he would consider re-evaluating the possibility of moving back there at some time in the future, but he also noted that there had been issues with parking and long lines with people waiting to vote at that precinct as well.
The move to Lillie Burney changes precinct lines, affecting about 1,500 in one and 1,000 in the other. “But here’s the thing,” said Woullard. “If we can match up with the city lines, then people would get used to voting in the same place over and over again. We’ve had challenges, people would go to one precint and they would send them to another one, so the fewer precincts that we have and Lillie Burney is an established precinct, I think we’re not going to have as much trouble.”
In defense of Noble and some of the issues she cited, Sue Polk, election commissioner for District 5, Chris Bowen’s district, said she would like to see the Thames precinct moved to another location for many of the same reasons, but no facility had been found that is accommodating.
Polk, who has been a commissioner for 22 years, also noted the struggles in the morning and in the late afternoon/evening with traffic and other issues.
Board President David Hogan said while he appreciated the job the electric commissioners do, the task of determining how to deal with the voting precincts fell on the shoulders of the supervisors and he had to support Woullard.
“We want to provide safe, easy access to our voting precincts to voters of Forrest County,” he said. “I don’t disagree that there are some issues.”
Bowen also supported Woullard. “With the way it’s been, we won’t have 3,600 turnout,” he said. “Numbers continue to drop due to apathy. We’re not thrilled about that and continue to promote the vote, but some have told me they’d rather not vote than have to serve on a jury.”
“We’re going to work through it,” said Woullard. “And I’m sure she’s going to work with us to help do it. We’ll all put our hands in here and try to make it work.”
