Almost half of Charlottesville will be voting in different precincts this year

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Tonsler Park and Alumni Hall will no longer be polling places.

Jackson-Via Elementary and Charlottesville High School will replace them, but this change ended up shifting people in other precincts as well.

“In order to make sure voters are as close as possible to the polling place, that way they can get there easily on election day, we had to reapportion and redraw the lines across the entire city,” General Registrar and Director of Elections Taylor Yowell said.

A little more than 40% of voters will be voting at a different location this election cycle.

“With census data, when that comes in, it’ll come in with more numbers. During a presidential election, sometimes you get flagged for having too many polls, too many voters at a polling place, which is what happened in this case,” Yowell said.

The city found Johnson Elementary to be too crowded, so the registrar worked with neighbors to draw new precinct lines.

“We’re reapportioning the numbers at each polling place, so with doing that it’s some of the precincts that had over 4000 voters now have less,” Yowell said.

The primaries in June will be the first election in which these new precincts will have taken effect.

“This is always a very engaged city with a lot of people who vote, even in primaries, so it’s really important that everyone look up their polling location,” Councilor Michael Payne said. “You don’t want anyone to go to their old polling location and be confused that there’s been a change and create any barriers.”

You’ll receive a letter in the mail if your location changes, and the city has precinct maps online as well.

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