A unanimous vote passed yesterday by the Athens County Board of Elections will decrease the number of voting precincts in the county.
The number of precincts in the county will drop from 71 to 56, said Debbie Quivey, director of the board.
“We didn’t really redistrict, but took small precincts and combined them,” she said.
Each voting precinct can have a maximum of 1,400 registered voters, according to the Ohio Revised Code.
The redistricting occurred because some precincts in the county had as little as 200 voters, said Penny Brooks, deputy director of the board.
Reducing the precincts, and thus the number of poll workers, will save the county about $7,000 every election, she said.
But the combining of precincts should not affect voting times for citizens of the county, Quivey said.
“While the lines may get a little longer at [the combined precincts], we are not asking anything that is not already being done at the larger ones,” she said.
The drop in precincts will take affect during the 2012 primaries, Brooks said.
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