By Portia Williams
GREENUP, Ky. — As of Aug. 11, 2015, adjustments have been made in the voting precincts in Greenup County, Ky., that will take the number of precincts from 32 to 29, according to Pat Hieneman, Greenup County Clerk.
Hieneman said changes have been approved by the Legislative Research Committee to make the necessary adjustments in the precincts official. She said she recently met with members of Greenup County Fiscal Court in which she gave an update on the changes. A consolidation of precincts, and clarification of boundary lines are the changes included.
“This was approved by the State board August 11th, and it is something that we have been working on for a long time,” Hieneman said. “We have changed our precincts from 32 to 29. The main reason for the adjustment, if you could read our description, noon could follow those. It is very hard to code voters when there is no measuring line out there that says this is your precinct. Of course the law says you vote in the precinct you live in, so that one was one of the main changes.”
She said displacement for some voters was unavoidable.
“Small precincts which don’t have many voters in them, in made since to combine some of those, and that was done too,” she said. “We didn’t reduce them by many, from 32 to 29, only down three. We have rules that we have to go by. It has to be a visible feature, and when you are rural, it can be hard to find physical features to follow. We tried not to displace any voters, but of course, that was not possible, and there will be some voters that will have to change precincts, not many but some.”
In the long run, the changes in the voting precincts will be advantageous to the county.
“It is going to make our census more accurate, will make our job easier here in the Clerk’s office, where we have to code voters in the precincts they live,” she said. “So, we are in the process of getting all of those voters changed to the correct precinct, so that’s going to be a bit time consuming, but of course it will be right before the General Election.”
Reach Portia Williams at 740-353-3101, ext. 1929, or on Twitter @PortiaWillPDT.
