The East Hampton School Board spoke loudly, and the Suffolk County Board of Elections heard.
Following the school district’s widely distributed press release on the subject of moving voting sites out of schools, news reports appeared in print and on TV Channel 12, and now the board of elections has agreed to move the polling site formerly at the John M. Marshall Elementary School to the conference room at the district office. That means that four local election districts will all vote at the district office, which is adjacent to the high school on Long Lane.
“I think they’re responding to us,” Richard Burns, East Hampton’s superintendent, said during a Sept. 17 school board meeting. Jackie Lowey, a school board member, called it “a very big first step forward.”
“I do think we’ve been very critical of them, so I think we should say thank you for listening to our concerns,” she said.
Yesterday, Mr. Burns confirmed that the move would be made. Nick LaLota and Anita Katz, the Republican and Democratic commissioners of the board of elections, could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Burns said he would push the board of elections to find an altogether different site next year for the national elections. “That could be a much more crowded venue at that point,” he said.