KTIV NewsChannel 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and SportsVoter centers plan scrapped after city considers lawsuit

Voter centers plan scrapped after city considers lawsuit

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KTIV) - The Woodbury County Auditor has dropped plans to replace polling places with a handful voting centers.

Under Auditor Pat Gill's proposal people could vote, register, and change their address at any of the locations, rather than be restricted to voting in their particular precinct.

Gill believed the idea would increase voter participation.

But, the city of Sioux City thought it would do just the opposite and threatened to take action against Woodbury County.

Fearing that voters would be disenfranchised in the upcoming city council election, City Attorney Andrew Mai says they considered suing the county.

Gill says the idea wasn't worth heading to court.

The first question from the representative in the city attorney's office was, 'Who is representing you?' I thought, I didn't know we needed legal representation. We had no intention of becoming adversaries. We weren't going to move forward unless we had buy in from all the entities involved," said Pat Gill.

While the city council and school board elections will stick to the current precinct format, Gill thinks the state of Iowa may shift to voting centers for next year's primary.