by Max Marbut
Special to the Daily Record
Since consolidation in 1968, the voting precinct map for Duval County hasn’t changed much other than adding new precincts as the population grew.
All that may soon change.
A bill is before the City Council that would redraw the county’s voting map, consolidating 23 precincts, adding 19 new ones and moving polling locations within precincts.
“We’re not redrawing lines as far as who represents a district or who a person can vote for,” said Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland. “This is not redistricting, which only happens every 10 years after the Census.”
Holland said the planning process took his office six months.
“We knew we had a lot of different dynamics, so we set a couple of parameters,” he said. “We wanted to reduce the size of our largest precincts. With the new plan, we have only one that’s over 2,800 registered voters. We didn’t want to take a polling location out of a retirement home or senior citizens center, because we didn’t want to inconvenience voters with transportation issues. We also had some precincts with polling locations across the street from each other.”
The changes will affect 180 of the 285 existing precincts and reduce the total number by five.
“We’re planning an extensive advertising campaign to make sure every voter who is affected will be aware of the changes before the September 2006 election. As soon as the measure is approved, we will send out new voter information cards,” said Holland.
Voters will notice other changes the next time they cast their ballots, including every polling location being handicap-accessible.
“Currently, only eight of the 285 precincts are fully accessible,”said Holland. “By the September primary election, we will have all precincts fully accessible, either by making improvements or finding new locations.”
Other planned enhancements to the voting process have been made possible by modern technology, including a computer system that will allow voters to swipe the magnetic strip on their driver’s licenses at their polling locations, which should speed up the process.
“It verifies your identity and updates the system every fifteen seconds, eliminating the old register books,” said Holland.
The new system will be in place at early voting locations by next September’s primary and will be ready at all precincts in time for the Spring 2007 city election.
“We want to make sure no one ever says they wanted to vote, but they didn’t want to wait in line,” he said.