Safety And Licensing Committee Approves Moving District 12 Polling Location From St. John’s Church In District 12 To St. Pius Church In District 6

The Safety and Licensing committee met 01/11/2023.

The three license applications (two for cigarettes, one for alcohol) were approved with no discussion, and none of the directors had any reports to give to the committee, so most of the meeting was taken up with discussion on the resolution changing the District 12 polling place.

District 12’s current polling place is Saint John United Church of Christ at 1130 W Marquette St; however, the church recently sold its building and relocated and the new building owners did not respond when the city inquired about the possibility of keeping the building as a polling place. So, the City Clerk’s office was seeking to change the polling place to Saint Pius X Catholic Church at 500 W Marquette St which was located in District 6.

The committee ended up unanimously approving the change.

I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the discussion for your downloading pleasure:

If the polling place change is approved by the full Council, District 12 residents will vote in District 6 while District 6 residents will vote at the Scheig Center which is in District 14. In fact, once this change is complete, 5 of the city’s 15 districts will have polling places in other districts.

Per City Clerk Kami Lynch, most of the polling places that are outside of their districts are that way because of redistricting. Additionally, because of redistricting, many of the polling places that are still in their districts are now on the edges of their districts which is not ideal.

State statute prioritizes the use of public facilities as polling places but then gives the official in charge of elections the ability to recommend something else if that other location is more suitable. The city itself does not have such a rule in place, but it does try to adhere to state statute.

District 12, specifically, is a very residential district with few facilities that could serve as a polling place. When Saint John informed the city that they would be selling their building, the Clerk’s Office compiled a list of potential other polling places. While not in District 12, St. Pius was their first choice due to its space, parking, and ease of access.

The Scheig Center was still desirable as a polling location for District 6 because it was a city-owned facility which gives the city a lot more flexibility in terms of planning for elections in that space. Additionally, if the District 6 polling location was moved to St. Pius, the city would still need to find a polling place for District 12.

There was some discussion about the possibility of reviewing and reordering the city’s polling places, but Clerk Lynch said that they don’t like to move polling places more than they have to. They like to keep polling places as consistent as possible for voters. It is also difficult for the city to find suitable facilities to serve as polling locations. Additionally, the city does not want to consolidate voting locations because they believe voters prefer to have short lines on election day versus longer lines.

Once the polling location change was approved, the city would send out letters to affected residents. Clerk Lynch said that, typically, they only mail those letters to registered voters within a district; however, with the recent redistricting, they did have the ability to pull addresses and mail a letter to every address in the district whether it was associated with a registered voter or not.

The committee expressed a general preference for mailing letters to everyone instead of just registered voters. Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) thought it would be a good idea to at least know what the cost difference would be between mailing everyone versus only registered voters, just as a way to maintain transparency. And, Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) said that based on her experience as a poll worker that even a lot of people who receive letters may not end up knowing about the location change.

Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) said the building would soon have new occupants so he hoped they would be able to direct lost voters to the correct location. He also, as the District 12 alderperson, planned to do some canvassing to let his constituents know about the change.

The committee voted 4-0 to approve the location change for the District 6 polling place.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1063453&GUID=A42B0A38-A967-4B70-92F7-A73AA9B87416