Gibson county moves early voting to a bigger location

Since the start of early voting in Tennessee Gibson county voters have been walking through this hall to cast their ballot, but it’s 2020 and the Gibson county election commission wants to start a new tradition.

With nearly half of the voters in Gibson county early voting, the Gibson county election commission says the space they are in now is not enough.

Gibson County Administrator of Elections, Julieanne Hart says, “Now it's getting to be more like 50 percent that’s another reason we need to move it out because it's such a big crowd here and really busy.”

The election office in Trenton is the hub for the entire county.

They opened an early voting location in Medina but it did not cut down on traffic in the home office.

“We deal with other things her as well, during early voting. We’re dealing with candidates picking up petitions for future elections, we are dealing with people coming in with questions needing a sample ballot", says Hart.

Voters would usually start here…

Hart explains the voters usual process, “At the trenton location the voters would enter the courthouse, come into the office here and we would register them at the desk here and they would go to the back room to vote.”

And vote in this small space.

The new location of early voting will make a space dedicated strictly to voting.

They hope the move to the AgriPlex in Trenton will give voters privacy and more space to vote.

But they need to get the word out.

“We’re mainly concerned initially about them just being aware of the change and not coming into the courthouse, we are going to have signs out to try to tell them", says Hart.

Early voting for the March primary election starts February 12th until the 25th in Gibson county

I am in the Ed Jones AgriPlex. This is the space early voting will take place. Once early voting starts it will be filled with polling booths to cast that vote and not chairs. In trenton, for 39 news, I’m Imani Williams.