Long Voter Lines Due to Redistricting

The City Canvassing Office reports approximately 58 percent of registered Newport voters turned out to the polls for Tuesday’s election. Out of Newport’s 14,254 registered voters, 8,244 cast their ballots.

Canvassing Clerk Richard O’Neill said 280 unregistered voters also cast their vote for President and Vice President at City Hall.

Turn out for the last presidential election “may have been a little higher,” O’Neill said, but the numbers generally appeared to be consistent.

The canvassing office is still waiting for mail ballot results, which are still being processed. O’Neill said 949 people applied for a mail ballot, but the number of completed ballots is still unknown.

Results should be finalized sometime today, he said.

While voter turn out did not spike dramatically, some voters met long lines, and even longer waits, to cast their votes due to redistricting following the 2010 Census.

Throughout the day, voters at the Park Holm Senior Center and Donovan Manor reported waiting in line for more than two hours. When the polls closed at 8 p.m., there were still many voters left in line. Votes were still being cast after 9 p.m.

O’Neill said that redistricting, coupled with the General Assembly increasing the total amount of voters allowed in a single precinct caused a bottleneck effect at some polling stations.

Previously, there was a 1,900-person limit per precinct, as opposed to today’s 3,000 maximum.

Those factors cause several polling locations to close as well as “very large” precincts, O'Neill said.

Before the census, Newport had 13 polling stations. This year, Newport voters were divided between seven locations.

O’Neill also attributed the addition of showing an ID and the number of inactive voters who had to fill out paper work to the congestion at some polling sites.

“Ideally, we’d have 20 or 30 people working at each polling place, it’s not easy to get poll workers,” he said.

As the day wore on and voting at other polling locations slowed, additional staff workers were brought in to busier stations.