LEWISTON – City Hall needs to make it easier for Ward 4’s voters in next month’s presidential election, according to county Democrats.

The City Council voted to move the Ward 4 polling place out of the Hillview Community Center in July, just after the June 10 primary. Ward 4’s voters will now go to the Multi-Purpose Center to vote.

“Really, it was a problem with safety and space at that location,” City Administrator Jim Bennett said. “It’s a small building, with not a lot of space inside for voters. And, there was an issue with the flow of traffic in that neighborhood.”

But the move threatens to disenfranchise Ward 4’s voters, according Will Fessenden, chairman of the Androscoggin County Democrats.

“I don’t buy that argument that there was a safety problem, or that moving to the Multi-Purpose Center solves that,” Fessenden said. “They didn’t solve anything that way, but they did make it harder for some people to vote. I think those people have a serious concern about how they are going to get to the polls.”

Fessenden said he’s reported the situation to the state Democratic Party and to the Maine Civil Liberties Union. He said he plans to bring the matter up at Tuesday’s Lewiston City Council meeting at 7 p.m. in City Hall.

The city has been consolidating polling places since 2003. That year, the city cut the number of polling places from 15 to eight – and they’ve continued reducing the number ever since.

“Generally, there has been a question of city-ownership of the polling places,” Bennett said. The city paid to rent space in some privately-owned buildings – including L-A College, St. Joseph’s School and the Holy Family Parish Center.

“We’ve had a couple of heart attack situations over the years when those facilities said spaces wouldn’t be available, almost at the last minute,” Bennett said. “That prompted us to look at moving as many of our polling places as possible into our own buildings.

This November, all voters will go to one of four places to vote. All but one of them, the Elks Lodge, is a publicly-owned building:

• Voters in Wards 1 and 3 will go to the Lewiston Memorial Armory, 65 Central Ave.

• Voters in Ward 2 will go to Montello Elementary School, 407 East Ave.

• Voters in Wards 4, 5 and 7 will go to the Multi-Purpose Center, 145 Birch St.

• Voters in Ward 6 will go to the Elks Lodge, 1675 Lisbon Road.

Ward 4 has the fourth largest number of registered voters in Lewiston, according to the City Clerk’s office. In all, 3,414 voters are registered there. Ward 2 has the most registered voters, with 3,836. Ward 7 has the fewest, with 3,087.

Deputy City Clerk Kelly Mercier said the clerk’s office is mailing postcards to all of Ward 4 voters reminding them about the change. They had mailed 3,200 as of Friday, she said.

It’s too late to change the polling places, she said. Those need to be set 90 days before the election, according to state rules.

High voter turnout expected for this November’s election was one of the reasons to move Ward 4’s voters out of Hillview, Bennett said. The community center is in a residential area surrounded by apartments.

“We’ve had to change the flow of the road there, turning it into a one-way street just for Election Day,” Bennett said. “We did that just to get some control over the traffic. And we have to bring in portable street lights after it gets dark.”

Mayor Larry Gilbert said he supported the change this summer, and still supports it.

“It’s a neighborhood, a home for little children,” Gilbert said. “They’re not used to having all those cars coming through their neighborhood. In my mind, the combination of traffic and little children was a tragedy just waiting to happen.”

The city does allow voting at two elementary schools. All Ward 2 voters go to the Montello School, and the Multi-Purpose Center shares space with the Longley School.

But it’s a different situation, Bennett said.

“Both of those places have regular traffic. It’s not something that happens once year,” Bennett said. “The kids get used to where the cars come from, and it’s not different for just one day. Besides, the kids at the schools are under adult supervision and the teachers can help direct them after school.”

But Fessenden said it was a mistake to move the polling place now, just before the presidential election. People who voted in the June primaries at Hillview will be confused.

“I think it’s unconscionable to change it midway, between the primary and the general election,” he said. “They should have changed before the primary, or waited until after the presidential election. Doing it in between just adds to the problem.”

The Androscoggin County Democrats planned to provide rides to the poll for Ward 4’s voters and urged the city to do likewise.

“We’re going to make an extra effort in Hillview to get people out to vote early and to get absentee ballots,” he said. “We’ll find them rides to get there, if they need them.”