Voting districts in eight Luzerne County municipalities will change for the April 26 primary as part of a consolidation to save thousands of dollars on materials, staffing and other overhead, officials said.
County Election Director Marisa Crispell said the move also will make voter registration counts more uniform and reduce the number of poll workers who must be trained.
The changes, according to the election office:
• Plymouth Township’s two election wards will be combined to form one covering the entire municipality, which has a total of 1,189 voters.
• Exeter election Wards 2 and 3 will be combined into a new Ward 2 with 1,001 voters. The current Ward 4 will have the same boundary lines, with 1,762 voters, but will be renamed Ward 3.
• Hanover Township Wards 2 and 3 will be combined to form a new Ward 2 with 1,029 voters. The current Ward 7 will have the same boundary lines, with 1,886 voters, but will be renamed Ward 3.
• Larksville Wards 3 and 4 will be combined to form a new Ward 3 with 820 voters.
The changes will go beyond consolidation of existing wards in four municipalities — Edwardsville, Pittston, Plymouth and West Hazleton — because new boundary lines have been carved out.
Those changes:
• Edwardsville’s three wards will be reduced to two, with 1,125 voters in the new Ward 1 and 1,069 in the new Ward 2.
• Pittston’s boundary lines will change to reduce the number of wards from six to four. The voter registration count in each: Ward 1, 1,124; Ward 2, 962; Ward 3, 1,270; and Ward 4, 1,100.
• Plymouth will go from four to three wards with the following voter count in each: Ward 1, 1,037; Ward 2, 1,056; and Ward 3, 863.
• West Hazleton will convert from three to two wards, with 988 voters in Ward 1 and 976 in Ward 2.
Maps showing ward configurations before and after the change have been posted on the county election page at www.luzernecounty.org along with a list of polling places for each ward, Crispell said.
All changes were approved in county court, she said.
New voter registration cards soon will be mailed to all impacted voters, she said.
Every municipality, no matter how small, must have its own polling place. Plymouth Township is joining around 35 of the county’s 76 municipalities that have only one district.
