1.Election precinct designation - Laserfiche WebLink

GOVERNMENT Auditor Michael Montiplaisir, CPA 701-241-5601 Treasurer Charlotte Sandvik 701-241-5611 Director of Equalization Frank Klein 701-2416616 Box 2806 211 Ninth Street South Fargo, North Dakota 58103 Fax 701-241-5728 December 1, 2003 Board of County Commissioners Cass County Govemment 211 9th St. S. Fargo ND 58103 Re: Precinct Changes for 2004 Dear Commissioners: We have been talking about precinct consolidation in connection with implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) for some time. We earlier invited cities to a meeting in Casselton to discuss this issue, along with other issues, and at the last Township Officers' meeting, again discussed precinct consolidation. While consolidating precincts will never be popular, I think most city and township officials know that some consolidation is necessary. If you recall from the state plan, Cass County needs to reduce the number of precincts from sixty-seven (includes absentee precinct) to sixty-one, a reduction of six precincts. There are many ways of doing this, but no matter how it is done, it will not be popular with the affected voters. In addition to combining precincts, we have opportunities for co-locating precincts to reduce the number of voting devices needed. These are in areas where, because of political boundaries, We need a separate precinct but can operate that precinct in the same physical location as another precinct. My recommendation may result in the county having fewer precincts than allowable under the state plan. I am recommending precinct consolidations that make sense because the county will be handling the long term costs of election precincts. One of the things we need to keep in mind is that elections are only held twice every two years and keeping the number of precincts down will save taxpayer funds while still providing the services that are needed. Most of the precinct consolidation possibilities are in the rural area because they are the least populated precincts. While precincts in Fargo and West Fargo are small in area, for the most part, they are heavily populated with high voter participation. In theory, thousands of voters could vote at one location; however, the practical side of how many cars we can accommodate and how many voters we can circulate through a building puts some real limits on precinct size. With the current voting locations, I would consider 1,500 to 2,000 voters as the practical limit in most precincts. Given the constraints of the polling sites, I am only recommending two precincts be combined in Fargo and none in West Fargo. The precincts located at the Fargo High Rise (21-02) and the Fargo Library (21-05) could be combined at the Fargo High Rise. Even with this combination, the precinct size would be small both in terms of area and in terms of voters. A total of 404 electors voted at these two precincts combined in the 2002 General Election. Space and parking are both limited at this location; however, they should be able to accommodate the additional voters. www. casscountygov, com