Since then, he’s been working with the rest of the government in the county to re-work the county’s polling difficulties, which cropped during the 2008 general election.
“We were working on it before I even went out as a Commissioner,” he said.
Bowling held a meeting in his office Monday with Stan Batemon, chairman of the County Commission, and Deborah Howard, chairman of the County Board of Registrars. The three of them explained some of the changes that have gone into effect in advance of the 2010 primary elections, which will take place Tuesday, June 1.
Most notably, the county expanded from 29 polling places to 31, adding Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Leeds and New Town Hall in Argo, located on Blackjack Road. The polling place in Margaret also moved: instead of voting at Town Hall, citizens in Margaret will go to North Valley Church to vote.
Howard said more than 46,000 cards were mailed out to registered voters in the county, all of them telling the recipients where they should go to vote on June 1.
“It (the card) looks like a little piece of junk mail,” she said. “Not everyone in the county has moved, and one thing we’ve said is, ‘There are 3 registrars and a lot of changes.’
“We’ve moved the bulk of them, but there are over 3,000 streets in St. Clair County. Which is another big reason why we mailed out the cards, and have the newspaper. So you can look it up and check.”
The need for change was evident in November 2008. According to Bowling, over 34,000 people turned out to vote in the presidential election, with 6,000 of those directed to Moody City Hall and Whites Chapel Community Center. At both places, the wait was nearly three hours; voting in Moody was still going on when Sen. John McCain concluded his concession speech late that night.
Many of the changes were made to relieve pressure off those two areas.
“Our massive growth has been on the west side of the county,” Batemon said. “Moody, Branchville, Odenville, Springville, has been our massive growth.”
Batemon added that the county has done some work to address the accessibility issues in a number of polling places, in an effort to comply with the “Help America Vote” Act.
“It requires certain things to be done, such as accessibility,” he said. “So we have paved the parking lots of some churches, we have made upgrades at some community centers, to comply with the Help America Vote act, for accessibility. I think that’s very important.
“The County Commission traditionally doesn’t pave parking lots at community centers and churches, but we’re required to provide better accessibility to our voting places.”
Bowling refused to take any credit for the work done to re-draw the district lines.
“They (the registrars) made the changes,” he said. “I just assisted them.”
Bowling added that no registered voters will be turned away from any polling place on election day.
Corrections for area polling places can be made until Tuesday, May 25, according to Howard. For more information, call 205-338-3954, or visit www.stclairco.com. Polls are open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 1.
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