Three polling places moved to school
Three of Shelter Island’s four polling places are no more. In the general election this November, there will be only the Shelter Island School to serve all the Island’s four voting districts.
In a recent mailing, the Suffolk County Board of Elections informed Islanders who always cast their general election ballots at the Heights, Cobbetts Lane or Center firehouses that the school would be their polling place on November 8.
The reason, according to Larry Lechmanski, chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, is that the Board of Elections last year told the fire district it had to provide more space and amenities at its polling places on Election Day in order to meet state requirements.
The space issue had come up on Election Day last November, when new optical scanner voting machines, including those for the handicapped, took up more space than the old mechanical pull-level machines that had been replaced under federal requirements. People waiting to vote had to stand outside because of the lack of room in the polling place.
The only way to make more room and comply with the Board of Elections’ requirements, Mr. Lechmanski said, was to move the department’s fire trucks out of their bays and park them outside all day.
The commissioners decided that wasn’t a good idea.
“We’re not taking millions of dollars worth of the taxpayers’ equipment and leaving it outside,” Mr. Lechmanski said in an interview on Tuesday. “In November, you never know what kind of weather you’ll get.”
“They literally sent us maps” showing how the polling places should be laid out, he said. The Board of Elections told the district, “‘This is the way it is.’ We said, ‘No, it’s not.’ We sent an official letter and requested that they move the polling stations to the school.”
Jesse Garcia, a spokesman for Suffolk County Election Commissioner Wayne T. Rogers, said that there had been a “scheduling conflict” with the fire district and “it was determined to use the school” as the best solution.
He noted the school is already familiar to voters Island-wide because all School District votes are conducted there. “It has a history of hosting votes Island-wide,” he said.
“The goal of Commissioner Rogers is to make the voting experience as efficient and secure as possible” and using the school easily met that goal, he added.
Town Republican Committee Chair Amber Williams, who also is treasurer of the fire district, said one voting place will be better because there will be no confusion about where a voter should go. “I think it’s a positive,” she said.
There will be separate sign-in tables and voting machines for each of the election districts, she said.
Ms. Williams said the change had stemmed from the Fire District’s concerns about responding to an emergency when all three firehouses were occupied by voters and election personnel. “They requested that the Board of Elections make other arrangements,” she said of the fire commissioners.
Heather Reylek, chair of the Democratic Committee, said people would get used to the change. She noted there used to be only one election district on Shelter Island decades ago; they were added as the population grew. There are still four districts but — as in the old days — the Island’s back to having one polling place, not just for school but for all elections.
