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City Clerk Mary Audley
When it comes to figuring out where to put a polling place, veteran City Clerk Mary Audley summed it up perfectly on Tuesday night: “It’s very difficult to please everybody.”
Audley directed her remark to city councilors reviewing polling place locations and it is fitting to pause for a few seconds and point out how Audley juggles responsibility for the Clerk’s office as well as the city Election Department with precision and efficiency.
Her organizational talents will be on full display on Nov. 8 when the presidential election, along with other ballot decisions, should attract voters like a giant magnet. Councilors are aware of the intense public interest in the election and they are looking at polling place locations with an eye to ensuring adequate parking is available to voters.
Councilors’ support for moving Ward 3’s polling place from English High School to the new Marshall Middle School appears to make sense because of the amount of parking available on Brookline Street compared to available parking at English.
Solving parking problems in Ward 4 could prove to be a tougher task. Ward 4 voters are currently voting at the Lynn Museum downtown and they previously cast ballots at nearby North Shore Community College before the start of work on the college’s addition ruled the campus out as a polling place. With ample parking and a central location, the KIPP charter school in the Highlands ultimately seems like the best place for the ward’s polls. To their credit, KIPP administrators seem to embrace the school as a potential polling site.
Councilors have many considerations to weigh as they review polling places, but their first priority should be public safety and their last priority convenience. Voters leaving work would pour into the polls on Nov. 8 as the sun casts its last rays and darkness descends over the city. Traffic and parking safety must be paramount considerations because busy voters, anxious to run home and eat and get on with their evenings, are going to be in a rush to park and vote. Election night with all of its attendant excitement does not need to be marred by tragedy.
There is another reason to ensure convenience does not dictate polling place decisions. It is easy to confuse voting accessibility with convenience. It is essential to ensure everyone can exercise their right to vote but voting should always be an exercise of the mind, heart and legs, not necessarily in that order.
Voters must be well-informed. They should vote with passion. But getting to the polls should be a chore befitting the most basic of democratic rights that Americans have died defending.
Here’s hoping councilors carefully weigh polling place locations and here’s hoping voting never becomes a lazy task defined by a few clicks on a keyboard or a tablet.
