Chapel Hill's old post office to be used for voting

HILLSBOROUGH -- Early voters in Orange County will be able to cast their ballots on Franklin Street this fall.

The Board of Elections voted Tuesday to make the old post office building one of three early voting sites.

Elections Director Barry Garner had been looking for a site in Chapel Hill since learning in April that the county would not be able to use the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center because of a special exhibit there.

The planetarium has been the most popular voting site, with 10,000 people voting there during the 2004 presidential election.

The post office site was endorsed by student representatives Katie Baker from Vote Carolina and Lauren Anderson, president of the Graduate-Professional-Student Federation, who attended Tuesday's meeting.

Steve Allred, executive associate provost at UNC-Chapel Hill, also recommended going with that location.

"It's at least as convenient as the Morehead Planetarium," he said.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton also spoke in favor of it.

"Everybody knows where the Chapel Hill post office is, and that seems like a great compromise to me," he said.

Garner had considered the Student Union on campus but found it difficult to secure parking spaces. The walk to the building and through the lobby to the available room also would have been long for physically disabled voters, he said.

Garner had ruled out the Stone Center, the university's other recommendation, because there was no way to secure voting equipment there. He said that he was talking with management at the Dean Smith Center, but those who came to speak Tuesday said the post office would be higher profile and more convenient for students.

Garner had proposed using the new senior center on Homestead Road, but students and some politicians said it was too far from campus and the downtown area.

The board approved the new site for this year's election unanimously.

There should be relatively light turnout, with municipal elections in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board.

Next year for the presidential elections, Garner is budgeting for roughly eight early voting sites to handle the anticipated increase in voter turnout.