SANDWICH – Sandwich voters will likely be casting their votes in the Forestdale and Oak Ridge School gymnasiums for the upcoming November presidential election due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Superintendent Pamela Gould.
Usually, the voting booths would have been set up in the multipurpose rooms at the schools, however the rooms have been repurposed into classrooms in order to facilitate COVID-19 safety regulations.
At a recent Sandwich School Committee meeting, Gould said that transitioning voting to the gym is something that the principles in the district have wanted to do for a long time, but now with the pandemic has become more important than ever.
“Our goal is that we can now continue to have school. This past year we’ve had four elections. That’s closing school for two little rooms, every single time for the entire district. As parents, I know that’s a bit aggravating so we’re trying to avoid that,” said Gould.
Gould said that Town Clerk Taylor White has visited the schools since the multipurpose rooms have been turned into classrooms and that he agreed that it would be a challenge to set up election booths in the rooms as they are.
Changes that will need to be made to the gyms include some work on the grading of ramps in order to make them fully handicap accessible.
“We’ll deal with some things. People don’t like change. We know that. But we’ve got to make sure that we do everything we can to make it accessible and do what we need for them,” said Gould.
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