Melrose Middle School Emerges As Preferred Fall Voting Location

MELROSE, MA — All 20,000-plus of the city's voters will be able to cast ballots once again in the middle school gym — at least for one more election — after the City Council endorsed a return to the popular polling place.

The City Council on Monday night voted in favor of moving this fall's municipal election to the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School for voters in all precincts.

Lawmakers were tasked with deciding whether to return voters to the centralized voting location, consolidate just a couple voting locations or keep the status quo. The issue was brought before them by the Board of Registrars of Voters after several polling places were found to have accessibility issues.

The Board of Registrars at the end of the spring recommended the city institute one of two changes: Either make the middle school a permanent centralized voting location or move the Winthrop School and City Hall polling locations to Memorial Hall and move the Steele House polling location to the Roosevelt School.

The committee decided to go with Option 1, with the caveat that it only be for this fall's election, which will almost definitely see a dramatically lower voter output than last November's record turnout. The upcoming election is for several city positions, most notably City Council and School Committee.

"Then we can have this discussion, if we win in November," Councilor Chris Cinella, up for re-election, half-joked.

The council was also asked to rule on is whether either change would disparately harm any segment of its voting population.

A city evaluation found neither change would have a disparately negative impact on voters based on age, race, income, disability, national origin or disability.

A memo citing this month's U.S. Census said the city's voting population of 20,733 in Melrose, with an average voting age of 51. The average voting age in all 14 precincts ranges from 47 to 52, indicating no precinct has a higher than average senior population.

The memo also said Melrose is similar in population and socioeconomic status as other communities who have a centralized voting location, such as Stoneham, Wakefield, Burlington and others. The city also does not have a large enough minority population that would require providing language support of polling location changes, though it does provide a Google Translate option on the website.

The council's ultimate decision will likely change where at least hundreds — and perhaps more than 20,000 — in Melrose cast ballots.

The memo said the middle school gym — which successfully housed all voting precincts in elections last November and September, the latter of which saw record turnout — is within 2 miles of "nearly every household in the city" and 0.3 miles from a bus stop, has ample parking and is ADA compliant with a conveniently located dropoff zone for people getting rides.

When the change to make the middle school location permanent was first proposed, the City Council would have needed to file a Home Rule Petition to the state legislature. But the pandemic-related legislation that allowed the centralized location in 2020 has since been extended.

The other option, consolidating some precincts to Memorial Hall and the Roosevelt School, would see many of the same benefits, including ADA compliance, parking and, for Memorial Hall, even closer proximity to public transportation, according to the memo.

Most importantly, both options would end voting at the Winthrop School — a location which the Board of Registrars of Voters said is not a feasible fix to bring into ADA compliance — and the Steele House. It would also move voting from City Hall, where more easily addressable accessible issues exist.

The middle school was also one of the locations identified as having accessibility problems, but it was just a missing "Van Accessible signage" in the parking lot.

The issue of accessibility arose when former City Clerk Amy Kamosa left her position this spring, writing a letter on her way out alerting Secretary of State William Galvin's office of potential issues.

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.