Chester County asked to relocate polling place

Voters in the precinct that includes Lincoln University have petitioned Chester County commissioners to change a polling location that on Nov. 4 became so crowded that some waited in line for more than seven hours.

The polling place, a small community center in Lower Oxford Township, was packed with voters, many of them university students who stood in the rain, in the dark and sometimes on railroad tracks just before a train traveled by.

"It's just not an adequate facility. We've simply outgrown it," said Jacqueline Caleb, a Democratic committeewoman in the Lower Oxford East precinct.

Caleb and fellow Democratic committeewoman Dorothea Murray submitted a petition to the Board of Commissioners at a meeting on Tuesday. It was one of several petitions submitted that day requesting that the polling place be changed from the Lincoln Community Association Building to the gymnasium at Lincoln University, about one mile away.

A similar petition to move the polling place was rejected by the Board of Commissioners, sitting as the county Board of Elections, by a 2-1 vote in September. Republican Commissioners Terence Farrell, who chairs the board and is also a Lower Oxford East committeeman, and Carol Aichele voted against a move. Democratic Commissioner Kathi Cozzone voted to move the polling location.

None of the commissioners could be reached for comment, but Farrell earlier argued that election-day crowds were the result not of the space conditions but of a sharp increase in new voters.

Some district residents who are not students do not want their polling place moved on campus, said John Brion, chairman of the Chester County Republican Party. Brion said residents have written letters to him stating that they had difficulty voting on election day because some students in line were unruly.

Murray, who was outside the polling place for nearly the whole day, said she didn't see that kind of behavior. "If you are standing in line for seven hours, things don't always go smoothly, but I think those reports are exaggerated," she said.

The petitions will be reviewed by the county Office for Voter Services to validate the signatures, solicitor Thomas Whiteman said in a statement. Commissioners will then meet to discuss the matter before deciding whether to consider the petitions as the Board of Elections.

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