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Franklin Precinct 4 voters will now be voting in Ward 4 at the Franklin Business Center, which is located at 601 N. Mechanic St.

Franklin City Council voted 5-0 during its Monday, Aug. 8, meeting to adopt an updated Ordinance No. 2022-02 that moves the Precinct 4 polling place from the Franklin Sportsman Association Inc. building at 1431 South St. to the business center.

Not voting due to absence from the meeting were Ward 2 Councilman Ray Smith and Ward 3 Councilman Gregory McLemore.

The ordinance states that it will be effective upon receipt of a Certificate of No Objection from the attorney general’s office, and the polling place location change is expected to be in effect for the November elections.

“This does put a polling place into Ward 4, which had not been the case,” Franklin City Manager Amanda C. Jarratt said of the change.

Franklin Voter Registrar Jennifer Maynard noted that for the last 10 years, Precinct 4’s polling place has actually been in Ward 5.

“The rule is you can have a polling place one mile outside of the precinct boundary,” Maynard said, adding that the Franklin Sportsman Association Inc. building location is actually still in accordance with this rule, even after the city’s recent redistricting. “But Dr. (Linwood) Johnson, who is the councilman for (Ward 4), he requested that we try to find a place for it inside the ward, so this will be in the new Ward 4.”

Jarratt stated that the Franklin Business Center “meets all of the requirements for ADA compliance, which we must have, and is a city-owned building, so everything else remains the same.”

Maynard noted that the city has actually recently used the business center as a polling place.

“We have used the building during COVID when another polling place was not available, so that’s a positive, because we’ve already worked out logistics and whatever,” she said. “So they have been really great to work with.”

One of the big challenges for Maynard and her department with regard to the polling place change is getting the word out to Precinct 4 voters.

“They’ll get new voter notices (in the mail) and things notifying them how they are affected by redistricting and where their polling place is,” she said. “And those should be out in September. They’re shooting for mid-September, but it could be sooner than that.”

Johnson made the motion to adopt the updated ordinance, and Ward 5 Councilwoman Wynndolyn H. Copeland seconded it.