Norman inspects voting houses
Published 12:00 am Saturday, May 8, 2004
With the June primaries now less than a month away Probate Judge Steve Norman has begun to take measures to make sure the voting houses are in working order.
Norman and Bruce Parker have teamed together to see that the voting houses around the county will be able to provide adequate facilities when the time comes to go to the polls.
Norman said that earlier in the week he and Parker went to each voting house that is not a public facility to examine their conditions and needs.
&uot;Basically what Bruce and I did was break the county down into sections and inspect the voting places that were not already maintained by someone else,&uot; said Norman. &uot;We went around and made some notes about what needs to be done before the coming elections.&uot;
Norman said he was partially pleased with what he found.
&uot;We were happy for the most part,&uot; said Norman. &uot;You can tell that a lot of people take pride in where they go to vote and it showed. Most of the polling places were very well maintained.&uot;
Norman said there were a couple of places that needed extra attention.
&uot;There were one or two that were sub-par at best,&uot; said Norman. &uot;We will do whatever we can to get them in the best condition we can before the election.&uot;
Most of the work that will be done on the voting houses is nothing more than spring-cleaning.
The repairs are mostly patchwork consisting of minor electrical work and weatherproofing the facilities to make them as comfortable as possible for the workers and voters alike.
There will also be minor yard work done and along with the removal of signs from past elections.
Norman had a big picture in mind to go along with the immediate minor repairs.
&uot;There are seven or eight facilities that do not have bathrooms,&uot; said Norman. &uot;Something definitely needs to be done about that. That’s one of the things we would like to fix,&uot;
Norman said that the changes that had been made to McClain’s Voting House could serve as a model for the sub-par voting houses.
&uot;I think that everyone has been very pleased with the things that went on there,&uot; said Norman. &uot;If we can keep that up we will be doing fine.&uot;
Norman said he and Parker would be on the ball to make sure that the voting houses would be in comfortable conditions for the June primary.
Norman hoped that the repairs that he spoke of would be a reality in the near future.