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SALT LAKE CITY — It’s the end of an era in Salt Lake County as November marks the first Presidential Election where schools won’t be used as polling places.
”We have eliminated the usage of schools,” said Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen. “I was concerned about the fact that on Election Day we were letting anyone into a school.”
Swensen started to rethink the long-standing tradition of schools serving as polling locations after the devastating 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
“Oftentimes the polling place within the school was set up in a gymnasium or a hallway,” she explained, “and people coming into that school were just there with the children.”
At first, her plan was to start phasing out just elementary schools. But once Utah approved voting by mail, last year she was able to consolidate precincts into more centralized voting locations at places like libraries, senior centers and fire stations.
“I really feel a lot better about not having polling places in schools,” she said of having completed the shift. “It gives me more peace of mind.”
In addition to safety concerns, Swensen said she couldn’t control if a disturbance near a school on Election Day would prevent residents from voting— something that’s happened before in her county.
“It can be any kind of a crime situation in the area and then they put the school on lockdown,” she said.
Schools trying to keep a certain individual away from campus is another problem situation Swensen has encountered when schools were used as polling locations. In that case, the clerk’s office arranged to have a security guard at the school.
School districts within the county did not request the change, but say allowing voters to enter schools did conflict with statewide policies requiring visitors to check in with the main office.
“With a polling location being in the media center or in the gymnasium, that poses a security concern,” said Granite School District spokesperson Ben Horsley.
While they would still try to accommodate polling if asked by the county, Horsley said they appreciate the sensitivity toward school safety.
“The world has changed,” Horsley said. “We need to be ensuring that we are providing people the opportunity to perform their civic duty while at the same time ensuring that our kids have a safe place to be educated.”
Neighboring Davis County will use only three elementary schools and one high school on Election Day. That’s down from an estimated 65 schools used in years past, according to Clerk/Auditor Curtis Koch.
One challenge in moving away from schools, Koch said, is finding alternative buildings that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
