Robbinsville – Graham County Board of Elections chairman Juanita Colvard provided the latest update on a planned move into a new facility.
Colvard has been speaking with Jason Marino – the new county project manager – about re-modeling a wing in the Graham County Community Building. Marino said the next step would be to take it before the Graham County Board of Commissioners at the upcoming Dec. 17 meeting, though the election board already has $100,000 on the budget for the re-model.
The new office – with a design the election board unanimously agreed on – would be much more expansive than the current location, with a bigger board room, more storage space for equipment
and much-larger voting area.
“We like the design; it’s adequate for our needs,” Colvard said. “We’ve got to have more storage; these rooms (at the current office) are full. If you come here during one-stop (voting), when you open the door, you’ll hit people in the back because of the line. It’s horrible. We don’t want to do that; we want to do this right.
“We’re going to stay there permanently when we get moved.” The board hopes to be in the new office before the general election in November of 2020.
Other news and notes from Monday’s meeting included:
* Board director Teresa Garland proposed closing the office Dec. 24-27, due to state closures. The motion passed unanimously.
* Garland reminded the board that absentee voting begins in January, with one-stop voting commencing in February.
The next election board meeting will be Friday, Dec. 20 at 5 p.m., which will be held to certify the candidates that file for the 2020 election.