ST. LOUIS COUNTY 鈥 St. Louis County residents voting in person in the Aug. 4 primary can do so at any of the 200 polling places across the county 鈥 not just the one in their neighborhood.
The option will be available for the first time because of new voting equipment bought by the county Election Board last year. The new system prints paper ballots on demand at polling places.
While election officials expect that most voters still will show up at the precinct they鈥檙e assigned to, they鈥檒l now be able to vote anywhere in the county they choose.
That will allow, for example, people who work many miles away from their home to easily pop into a polling place near their workplace over the lunch hour. Or it might be an alternative chosen by a voter who prefers one polling place near their residence instead of another to which their precinct is assigned.
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Previously, the county preprinted hundreds of unique ballot styles and delivered them to polling places for voters who wanted paper ballots. Most voters, however, used touch screens, which have been phased out.
Now, the county will be able to print paper ballots with the specific ballot information tied to each voter鈥檚 address.
Eric Fey, Democratic director of elections, said adaptability was one of the reasons the election board chose the system.
鈥淚t would make us more nimble and better able to react to situations,鈥 he said.
At the municipal election June 2, he said, the feature allowed election officials to give voters who encountered a line at a Kirkwood polling place the alternative of going to another, less crowded one.
On Tuesday, the election board decided to let anyone vote anywhere in the county.
鈥淭hey wanted to offer this to everybody, for equity reasons,鈥 Fey said.
Fey said Kansas City is the only other Missouri jurisdiction with a similar policy.
Meanwhile, because of concerns over the coronavirus and recent state law changes on absentee voting, the number of people showing up at the polls is expected to drop significantly as absentee balloting soars.
As of Wednesday morning, Fey said, the county had processed more than 90,000 absentee ballot applications. That compares to 15,194 applications processed for the Aug. 2016 primary.
Mark Schlinkmann • 314-340-8265 @markschlinkmann on Twitter mschlinkmann@post-dispatch.com