From the Madison County Board of Elections and Registration

This is a heads up for all Madisonians that the BOER is considering a plan of consolidation of polling stations in this county. This action will not affect the existing precincts. Your precinct will remain the same. But for some voters this will mean that you will have to go to some other polling station to vote. At this time, the plan is only preliminary. There will be at least two public meetings to discuss this decision and we will listen to the concerns of the citizens of Madison County. These meetings will be announced in the newspaper and on our website.

There are five reasons for doing this:

It will save the county money by not having to pay rent for those venues, by employing fewer workers and other costs. Furthermore, moneys could be spent in improving the voting process.
We are finding it impossible to hire enough workers to man all twelve polls. We are already employing workers from outside the county. And very likely we will have more workers retiring.
We are having continual communications dropouts with these more isolated areas. Good communication is vital for carrying out an election.
Consolidation will allow for less equipment to be required in an election. The same amount of equipment will still be used, just more at the consolidated stations. And fewer stations will allow more leeway if something should break down. More machines would be available to move around if it should be necessary.
Security is mandatory at all locations during election. Fewer locations makes for better security.

There are three plans under consideration at this time. One is that we stay with the way things are now. The second is consolidating to one central polling station at the main elections office in Danielsville. And the third is consolidating down to seven polling stations. Under this plan Ila and Poca precincts will be combined to one polling station. Harrison and Mill will be combined. And Comer, Fork, Collins and Paoli will be combined to one polling station.

This consolidation action will not take place until after this November’s election. Hopefully it can be implemented before next year’s elections. Also, the location of some polling stations may change because the places used now may not be adequate for increased volume of voters. But no new locations have been discussed yet. For any questions you may have, please contact the Madison County BOER at (706)-795-6335 or come to our meeting every first Monday of the month at 5 p.m. at the elections head-quarters at 20 Albany Av. in Danielsville. We welcome all to come and attend. We would appreciate your comments and feedback.

BOER Member Michael McAvoy, August 2025