News

Board seeks to move polls out of schools

By Stacie N. Galang
Staff Writer
Published: December 15, 2008

PEABODY — School leaders want the city to consider putting the polls someplace other than in the elementary schools during elections.

However, the city clerk said other sites suitable for voting are hard to find.

The School Committee voted unanimously Tuesday night to ask the Board of Registrars and City Clerk Tim Spanos to look for new homes for the voting booths normally set up at Burke, McCarthy, South, West and Welch elementary schools.

For the first time this fall, students had a half-day for the Sept. 16 primary and no school Nov. 4.

Committee member Brandi Carpenter, who proposed the switch and oversees an ad hoc safety committee on school polling stations, described Election Day.

"It was a great day for the children not to be there," she said.

Spanos said this week that he had not seen the committee's request, but prefers to keep the polls where they are.

It is difficult to find sites that are both within the wards and provide handicapped accessibility, particularly in residential West Peabody, he said.

"Schools are in the neighborhoods, and that's where most of our voters are," Spanos said. "It is a public building, and we do have to serve 33,000 voters."

Carpenter has pushed the removal since the presidential primary in February, when a Randolph second-grader was struck and injured as a driver left an elementary school after voting.

She has raised additional concerns about the presence of voters and poll workers who are not required to have criminal background checks.

She said canceling school was impractical for parents, and a half-day created more traffic because parents opted to pick up their kids.

"I still do not think we should hold elections in our elementary schools," Carpenter said.

She asked to take the polls out of the Burke, McCarthy and Welch schools first because they share the same layout and require voters to access the polls through common entry points with students.

Committee member Beverley Dunne said safety aside, she welcomes voters because it shows children the importance of civic involvement.

Mayor Michael Bonfanti said the initiative is worth discussing.

"I take it as we're just looking, exploring," he said. "I think it's a good thing."

Carpenter suggested having a polling station in a supermarket, noting other communities have done so.

"It may work in other communities, but we don't feel in Peabody that would work for us," Spanos said.