Election Officials Reject School Voting Sites

BENTONVILLE — Benton County election officials Thursday rejected an offer to use Bentonville School District facilities as polling places for the Sept. 17 school election.

The Election Commission voted to decline the district’s offer to make space available for voting in three schools and the district’s administrative offices.

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The Bentonville School District has proposed a 2.9-mill property tax increase that would raise $74.7 million for a new high school on Gamble Road in Centerton. Voters will decide the millage question and elect one new member of the school board at the annual school election on Sept. 17.

Source: Staff Report

John Brown Jr., commission chairman, said he recieved several calls about the proposal, most of them anonymous. He said all of the callers opposed using schools for voting in a school election and questioned the fairness of the vote if the schools were used. Jim Parsons of Bella Vista, a local activist and frequent political candidate, attended Thursday’s meeting and voiced similar concern.

“I disagree with additional schools being thrown into the mix for polling places,”Parsons said. “Since this is a school-related election that would seem to create a conflict of interest. It’s just not fair and it’s just not right.”

The School District is asking voters to approve a 2.9-mill increase at the annual school election. The tax increase, if approved, would pay for a second high school.

School District representatives briefed the commission last week on locations the district would offer as polling places. Mary Ley, district communications director, said the administration building was one potential polling place, along with Barker Middle School, Ardis Ann Middle School and Cooper Elementary School. The School Board already had approved a recommendation to use the four district buildings as polling places for the election.

The School District wanted to make voting more convenient for parents of children, Ley told the commission last week. The sites were chosen with safety in mind, Ley said, and the district arranged to have police officers and deputies work at the sites on election day. The gymnasiums where voting would have been held are accessible without voters having to go through halls, thus minimizing encounters with students. Parking would have been available at all three locations and employees at the administration building would park across the street election day.

Michael Poore, school superintendent, told the board Thursday the district wants to be involved in the community, and making school facilities available as polling places seemed to be a good way to doing so. Poore said a number of parents asked about doing so during last year’s school election and the board went through a lengthy process before making its offer of the use of the schools and office space. Poore said the district didn’t want to limit the offer to this year’s school election.

“Our intent is not just to do this as a one-and-done,” he said. “Our intent is to go forward for the long term.”

The commission members and staff all said there would be problems using the schools if they weren't available as permanent polling locations. Poore told the commission the district has concerns about using the schools in May, for example, since that is one of the district’s testing periods and they try to minimize distractions for the students.

Dana Caler, voter registration specialist with the Benton County Clerk’s Office, said the office would have to send notices to voters every time a polling places is changed from one election to the next. Caler also said state law requires voting in runoff elections be held in the same location as the May primary or November general election. The state’s judicial elections further complicate that, Caler said, since the initial vote is in May and the runoff voting is in November.

Brown said other factors, including a new state law that will require the county to redraw voting precincts to keep them under a 3,000-voter cap, made the district’s offer too difficult to handle right now, but he is interested in trying to work out the use of schools in the future.

“This is not a slap at Bentonville schools in any way, shape or form,” Brown said. “It’s just too short a time for us to do what we need to do.”

Poore told the commission after the vote he remains interested in having the schools involved in the election process, saying it would be a valuable educational tool as well as a service to the community.

“We’re not going to go away,” Poore said. “We need you to guide us.”

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