Photo: Courtesy Dominick Pangallo
SALEM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Salem's city council will vote later this month on whether to relocate polling places from the town's schools.
Both the town's mayor, Dominick Pangallo, and the school district's superintendent, Dr. Stephen Zrike, are pushing to find alternate locations for Salem residents to cast their ballots.
"Holding voting in schools is disruptive to the school day and calendar, and poses an unnecessary and entirely avoidable safety risk," Pangallo said. "While there was no specific safety incident in this most recent primary election, we should not wait until there is an incident to address this issue."
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Salem is the latest town to spark a conversation about safety at polling places.
A 2022 poll by Reuters and market research firm Ipsos showed 40 percent of U.S. voters say they worry about voter intimidation. Two-thirds of voters feared acts of violence by extremists after the election.
One local told WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas she agreed with the idea to relocate polling places.
"There's enough going on in the schools," she said.
WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas (@JamesRojasMMJ) reports.
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