Douglas County election office seeks adjacent 5,000‑sq‑ft expansion to ease early‑voting crowding

The Douglas County Election Commission asked the county’s Administrative Services Committee to pursue leasing roughly 5,000 square feet of adjacent space to reduce long in‑person lines, add workstations for petition processing and improve ADA and curbside access.

The request, presented by election office staff, would add the adjacent space to the commission’s existing lease through 2029 with two five‑year renewal options. The commission said the landlord will rent the space to the elections office at about $7.25 per square foot and that the office has budgeted construction funds to connect the two spaces; staff said they are not asking for a supplemental county appropriation this year and would ask the county to include the additional annual lease cost — about $36,000 — in the next budget cycle.

Commission staff said demand for in‑person services has grown steadily. “The reason we're asking for this expansion is not for myself or for the staff. It's for the voters of Douglas County to serve them better,” said Brian Cruz, identified in the meeting as a member of the election commission. Staff said roughly 50% of voters in Douglas County now vote early; of those early voters, about 90–92% use mail ballots while 8–10% come to the office in person. The commission said last year it processed about 22,000 in‑person visits in a 30‑day early period, with peak days of about 1,500 people and waits of three to five hours.

Petition workload was a second driver. Staff reported verifying about 390,000 petition signatures in a 40‑day period last summer and said the office regularly fills every workstation during petition processing; the office said it expects a similar or higher number of petitions in the next cycle and that the added space would provide more permanent workstations rather than temporary tables and laptops.

Staff described operational benefits beyond additional capacity: the adjacent space would provide extra doors to create separate entrance and exit flows, a dedicated drop‑off entrance for ballots, and space to better serve curbside and ADA voters. “So if we get this expansion in the new space, there's 2 additional doors. So we can have an entrance in, we can have an entrance out, and we can also serve our curbside voters and ADA customers,” Cruz said.

On financing, Cruz said the elections office has money encumbered to pay for the build‑out this year and for the prorated lease; the office proposed to include the full additional lease cost in the subsequent county budget. Committee members asked whether the lease term and renewal options could create a long‑term obligation if future election laws or practices reduce space needs; staff said the current lease runs through 2029 with options for two additional five‑year renewals and that lease terms would be a negotiating point.

Committee members also asked about timeline and project oversight. Staff said they had not yet discussed a firm build‑out estimate with county facilities (referred to in the meeting as “Jeff”) and that they would work with county facilities on whether county crews or outside contractors would perform the work. The elections office said its goal is to have the expansion ready by March or April so the public can familiarize itself with the layout before the general election and so the space would be available for petition processing in the summer.

Several committee members emphasized monitoring long‑term demand and possible alternatives. Staff said the county already owns the Fitzgerald campus and that some back‑office processing (for example, data entry or petition review) could be moved there if needed, but that ballots and secure election operations would remain at the current location because of existing security and county room access.

Next steps discussed on the record included staff consulting with county facilities about build‑out costs and scheduling and returning to the committee for formal approval; one committee member said the goal is to consider the item on the 17th (the meeting’s internal scheduling referenced “the seventeenth”).