BENTONVILLE — The number of voter precincts in Benton County will increase by the end of 2013, after having been reduced just last year.
The Benton County Election Commission discussed the need for redrawing the lines of some precincts at a meeting Monday. Kim Dennison, election coordinator, said a bill passed in this year’s session of the state Legislature puts a cap on the size of voter precincts.
“The bill limits precincts to no more than 3,000 registered voters,” Dennison said.
Dennison said redrawing the districts will have to be done at the end of the year, after the Sept. 17 school elections. That time frame will give staff adequate time to do the work and provide voters with notification of the changes in advance of any election.
Dana Caler, voter registration supervisor, said officials redrew precincts after the 2010 Census, and the changes were approved in 2012. The county went from 83 precincts before the Census-related changes to 57. Caler said the number of precincts will increase after boundaries are redrawn to meet the new law.
“We’ll have quite a few more,” Caler said. “I can’t say for sure how many right now. We have 12 precincts that are already over 3,000 voters.”
Caler said the new law doesn’t require the new precincts be equal in population, only that they don’t exceed the 3,000-voter cap. She said the county has to consider potential polling locations and boundary lines when redrawing precincts.
“Our goal is to have it done by the first of the year,” Caler said.
The commission also discussed plans to adopt new vote-counting machines. Dennison said the county can’t proceed with either precinct-level counting machines or larger and faster versions of the tabulating machines the county now uses. Dennison said the federal government hasn’t approved the use of the machines the commission considered.
“So we’re at a standstill,” said Commissioner Robbyn Tumey. “We’re basically where we were in November.”
The commission also approved a number of housekeeping items for the June 11 special election in Bethel Heights. The city is asking voters to approve a 0.5 percent local sales tax for improvements and operating costs of the city’s sewer system, for city parks and for general city operations.