Bangor says no to single polling site

BANGOR – City councilors Monday night killed a plan to move all of the city’s polling places to the Bangor Civic Center.

The council’s 6-3 decision to maintain the status quo in terms of where residents vote followed a public hearing that brought residents on both sides of the issue to City Hall. An attempt to delay a decision for a month to give a council committee time to further consider the move was rejected by councilors.

Voting against the consolidation were Councilors Annie Allen, Geoffrey Gratwick, Richard Greene, Susan Hawes, Richard Stone and Dan Tremble. Supporting it were Council Chairman Frank Farrington and Councilors John Cashwell and Peter D’Errico.

The motion to table the plan was rejected in a 5-4 vote.

Stone voted against the consolidation because he didn’t see the move as necessary.

“I would rather our energy be spent on [fixing problems with] the existing voting system,” he said. He, like other councilors, praised City Clerk Patti Dubois for her effort in formulating the plan. “But I am, too, concerned about the disruption this will cause.”

Dubois, who in 2002 oversaw a similar merger while serving as Waterville’s city clerk, developed the consolidation proposal after last November’s elections, which featured federal and state elections and a couple of hot local issues.

Setting up and breaking down booths and tables and handling Election Day troubleshooting at nine different locations has proved to be a logistical nightmare, Dubois noted earlier.

Tremble agreed the current system has problems but voted against the proposal.

“If we want to make a change, we’ve got to do it right,” he said, adding that he’d prefer a decision that was more “middle ground.”

Councilor Allen said she had “grave concerns” about the plan, given that it’s not yet clear how the consolidated voting would jibe with the racino complex slated for next door.

Supporters thought the plan warranted a try.

“I am in firm support of this,” said Greene. “Every time you change something you run into some kind of resistance. … I think that to not try would be an error.”

During the hearing, people on both sides of the issue made persuasive arguments. The 15 residents who spoke included former and current election workers, representatives of the two major political parties, longtime residents and relative newcomers.

Bangor has four voting wards, each divided into two precincts, as well as a central polling site at City Hall.

Dubois’ proposal was to consolidate all aspects of elections – from voter registration and voting to absentee ballot processing and counting – in a single location, that being the Bangor Civic Center.

If voting had shifted to the Civic Center, as many as 150 voting booths and at least six ballot counting machines would have been set up. Voters would have lined up by alphabetical order, instead of by wards, and been given the appropriate ballot by their legislative district.