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Lunenburg County electoral board finds 9 of 12 polling places ADA-compliant; will supply lever door knobs to three sites
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Summary
The Lunenburg County Electoral Board reviewed an Oct. 7 ADA inspection of 12 polling places, approved buying three lever lock sets to fix door hardware deficiencies at three sites, and authorized a compliance report to the State Department of Elections noting nine fully compliant and three acceptably compliant sites.
At a meeting on Oct. 17, 2023, the Lunenburg County Electoral Board reviewed results of an Americans with Disabilities Act inspection of 12 polling places and approved measures to correct several accessibility shortcomings.
Chairman Donna Dagner called the meeting to order at 4:15 PM. The board said the Electoral Board Secretary, in conjunction with the Lunenburg County Building Inspector (the county’s ADA compliance officer), completed a 10-page "Polling Place Accessibility Checklist" for each site after on-site inspections on Oct. 7, 2023.
The checklist identified three polling places that lacked compliant lever-style door hardware on handicapped access doors: 301 — Rosebud Baptist Church; 401 — Arrowhead Gun Club; and 502 — The People's Community Center. The board approved a motion to purchase three lever lock sets and provide them to those polling places to bring the doors into compliance; the minutes record the motion passed but do not list a vote tally or the mover/second.
Separately, the board noted three polling places without a smooth-surface parking pad with a continuous hard-surface connection to the entryway: 302 — Rosebud Baptist Church; 402 — Tussekiah Baptist Church; and 501 — Bethlehem RZAU Church. The board and the county Building Inspector characterized those sites as private, rural properties whose existing parking accommodations are suitable for handicapped members. They also noted mitigating factors the board considered in assessing accessibility: the parking surfaces were judged "sufficiently hard and smooth," curbside (outside-the-polls) voting is available at the sites, the Registrar’s Office is fully ADA-compliant and offers 45 days of early voting (including two Saturdays and a Sunday), and absentee ballots by mail are available.
After discussion, the board approved a motion to submit an ADA Compliance Confirmation Report to the State Department of Elections showing nine of the 12 polling places as fully compliant and the three sites with parking-surface issues as "acceptably compliant" because they present no insurmountable obstacle to a handicapped voter. The minutes do not record a roll-call tally for that vote.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 PM. The minutes list the following names at the end of the record: Ohier L Wright; Donna Dagner; David Dalton; Oliver Wright. The minutes open by stating that Chairman Donna Dagner called the meeting to order; the signature block on the minutes lists those four names but does not reconcile roles for each signatory beyond identifying David Dalton in the text as the Electoral Board Secretary.