HELENA — If you’re a voter in the North Helena Valley, your polling place for next Tuesday’s primary may be different than you’re expecting.
In previous elections, Jim Darcy School has served as a Lewis and Clark County polling place. This year, though, Helena Public Schools leaders say they decided to stop making the school available as a voting location.
“During the years that Jim Darcy served as a polling station, serious parent and community concerns arose about maintaining a safe and secure environment for students and staff during daily school-hour operations,” district spokesperson Taylor Lassiter said in a statement to MTN. “We realized we couldn't find a feasible way to address these safety and security concerns and maintain the school as a polling location, so we made the decision to no longer open the school for that purpose.”
The change affects voters in four precincts, mostly in the north-central part of the valley on both sides of Interstate 15. This year, voters in the western two precincts have been reassigned to the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds, while those in the eastern two precincts will be sent to the Helena Valley Community Center on Tizer Road.
If you need to know where your polling place is, you can find it by using the Montana Secretary of State’s online Voter Information Portal.
As of May 26, election officials say voters should not mail back their absentee ballots, because they may not arrive in time to be counted. Mail voters can bring their ballots directly to their county elections office.
