ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 1996 TAG: 9611070034
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
New voters, lots of candidates and five state constitutional amendments to decide caused some delays at the polls Tuesday in the New River Valley, but registrars say the day went smoothly overall.
"Everything went like greased lightning. I'm surprised," said Floyd County Registrar Mary Weeks.
"We never have in the past had people in the lines when the polls closed. Turnout was just tremendous," Weeks said. More than 4,400 registered voters cast ballots in Floyd County; a 66 percent turnout.
Voter turnout in Montgomery County was 74.2 percent, and in Radford it was 76 percent. Pulaski County figures were unavailable.
Voters in Floyd County's Little River District approved a liquor-by-the-drink referendum after voting it down by a 3-2 margin in 1991. The vote means that Ray's Restaurant and the Pine Tavern can apply for liquor licenses. Ray Hatcher said he and Pine Tavern property owner Kathleen Ingham worked on both campaigns to get the referendum passed. This time, it passed 551-446, or with 55 percent of the vote.
"I think people's attitudes have changed," Hatcher said. He said many people believed it was unfair that the Woodberry Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway was allowed to serve mixed drinks through a bill the General Assembly passed in 1992 while Ray's and the Pine Tavern were not.
Hatcher said it takes 30 days for the new law to become effective.
Weeks and Montgomery County Registrar Sandra Chapin said voting delays were largely caused by the time it took voters to read the five proposed constitutional amendments. Four of the five amendments passed, but voters said no to allowing churches to incorporate.
Both registrars also said the new "motor voter" law led to increased voter rolls, but not necessarily because all of the people who were registered wanted to be eligible to vote. Chapin and Weeks said they've fielded many phone calls from residents who are upset when they receive notification that they have been registered. That's because they are confused when they fill out a form at the Department of Motor Vehicles and sign a section that asks if they want to register to vote.
Other changes the "motor voter" law has meant for registrars and precinct workers include asking first-time voters who registered by mail for identification and moving some voters to an inactive list when the address they give is different than the one the Postal Service has sent registrars based on a national change-of-address list. These people had question marks beside their names on the list used by poll workers, and had to provide more information before it was decided if they were properly registered, Chapin said.
"Those are some of the things that slowed some of our precincts down," Chapin said, plus that there were six candidates for president.
"We added extra poll workers, we added extra machines I felt like we were pretty well-prepared," she said. "We tried to anticipate a lot of these things. If we hadn't, it could have been much, much worse."
Chapin hadn't had a chance Wednesday to compare the 74.2 percent turnout with the 1992 presidential election figures, but said she believed it was down.
Weeks said she has seen an increase in absentee voting, and has encouraged senior citizens and those with medical problems to take advantage of its existence. "Anyone over 65's got no business standing in line for a half-hour to an hour," Weeks said.
In Radford, Registrar Tracy Howard said "things went extremely smoothly thank goodness."
He said there were a couple dozen people who thought they were registered to vote but were not. For some reason, "their registration didn't reach us" or applications came in after the deadline.
Howard said the voter turnout was down compared with the 84 percent turnout in 1992.
Still, precinct workers were swamped at times.
"From 6 a.m. to noon, we were voting better than 130 people per hour at each precinct so we were running them through," he said.
Details of Pulaski County's voting were unavailable Wednesday from the registrar's office, which has been in turmoil since the former registrar was arrested on three embezzlement charges in September and fired last month.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines KEYWORDS: ELECTIONby CNB