Lynchburg election officials are mulling over a few ideas to combat congestion at Heritage Elementary School on Election Day.
Officials met with the school principal and looked over the building in February while class was in session. A handful of ideas were devised that could make the site more functional for the City Council elections on May 4. They include:
Conducting voter check-in in an entrance hall to free up space in the cafeteria where voting typically occurs;
Arranging for students to eat bagged lunches in their classrooms;
Asking school staff to park in an alternate lot;
Requesting that a teacher work day now scheduled for April 30 be moved to May 4.
The upcoming council elections will mark the first time that voting occurs at Heritage Elementary while class is still in session since Liberty University began its campus voter drive back in 2008. The public schools are closed during the federal and state elections held in November.
In past years, students and voters shared space in the school cafeteria, but election officials recently began using that entire room due to the LU-fueled spike in voter traffic.
The electoral board now is pondering how to adjust to these new conditions and outlined some
possibilities in a recent report to council. A formal proposal still must be submitted to the school division for approval.
Voter numbers in the Heritage Elementary precinct have tripled over the past two years because of the gush of new LU student voters. The precinct is now the largest in the city.
The electoral board has taken steps before to address the new traffic levels in this precinct, including allotting it more voting machines and precinct workers. In February, the board voted to designate a second assistant chief for the precinct to help oversee operations on Election Day.
Normally, each precinct has one chief and one assistant chief.
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