On Monday afternoon the DeSoto Parish Police Jury designated the Registrar of Voters as the person responsible for selecting local voting places. Recent changes made to voting locations has caused some controversy. That spilled over into the public meeting.
The jury heard that recent changes to polling places could not be undone prior to the next round of elections. Some voters are unhappy over the change and that includes Juror Jeri Burrell. She complained that the map of voting precinct boundaries on the jury’s website is out of date. “It’s our fault (the Jury) because the website was not updated,” said Burrell. She added, “We tried to go over the Clerk’s head. The Registrar of Voters is not to send out the notifications (of the polling place location) the Secretary of State is supposed to do it.”
District Attorney Charles Adams told the jury, “The Police Jury has the responsibility to designate polling places. Formerly the Clerk of Court did it (selected polling places). We put it on the agenda for the September 8th special meeting. We made a technical correction. The Secretary of State advised it was too late to change the polling places back.”
Juror Thomas Jones asked, “Why are we changing it? We are responsible and the clerk has been doing this. Now we want to change and put the Registrar of Voters in charge of selecting locations. Why do we want to change?”
Juror Kyle Kennington said, “The Secretary of State and attorneys said the duty falls on the Police Jury to designate whoever we want to delegate it to.” He added, “The Secretary of State said we cannot fix the errors until December 12th. The only way to make a change is if a building approved is not available.”
Members of the Police Jury then passed the resolution to designate the Registrar of Voters to recommend election day polling places.
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