crazyfingers

I have never had to go to a Chruch to vote. It's always been in the public school.

Activist challenges the use of churches as polling places

Edit: Strange. They used to allow links.

Here are some key points:

Ab_Normal

I got a page not found when I tried to read the link.

During my voting career, I've always gone to public schools to vote. However, the recreation hall of the Catholic church I attended as a child was the local polling place. I really don't see an excessive entanglement of church and state in it.

edit: Here's a repaired link

edit again: nope, that didn't work either. grumble grumbly grumble

Toto

I was able to find the article by searching for the title from the home page. Boston Globe may not allow "deep linking."

The activist here is an Orthodox Jew with a fairly extreme (but not uncalled for) interpretation of the requirements of his own religion, not a secularist. The article goes on to quote Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foudation in support of his position, but quotes other secularists as dismissing this as too trivial an incident.

MzNeko

The last time I voted, the polling place was in a local Baptist church. It had always been in one of the buildings in a nearby park before.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a brat at heart, but I experienced a pleasant “neener, neener” kind of feeling while trotting my heathenish self in there to vote.

BigBlue2

I don't see it as an issue worth making a fuss over. In Australia, polling places are usually in schools, town halls or churches. I doubt anyone sees having polling places in churches as a violation of the separation of church and State (which exists in Australia as well). MzNeko's attitude is the right one to take, IMO.

lisarea

On the face of it, it doesn't bother me, either. I've voted in churches a number of times, and didn't experience any lasting symptoms.

BUT, when I think about it, it would seem that the familiarity of the church might create a situation where the members of the congregation turn out in greater numbers.

I'd be interested to know what the turnouts look like depending on where the polling place is located. I'm guessing that the regular users of the building are going to turn out in greater numbers regardless. (So, say, more parents of elementary school students would vote when the polling place is in their kids' school, too.)

GaryP

What about having to walk down a hall in the church on whose walls are posted pro-life posters, for instance.

Or say religion has been brought into a campaign and some voters are reminded of that issue one way or another by the simple act of being in a church.

I've had to vote in a church for several years now, and I have seen things posted on the walls which could be construed as political in nature. Of course, I've never seen partisan posters but I have seen issues being addressed.

Here in Ohio, several years ago, most churches opposed an issue which would have legalized gambling casinos. I think having to vote in one of those churches on that issue raised definite concerns.

Seeker630

Me too. I am from the Detroit area and up there I always voted in a school, and never heard of any precincts that used any kind of church. I now live in Sarasota county in Florida, and over 2/3 of the precincts are in churches, including Jewish facilities. At first I disliked the idea, but it is one based on practical necessity-----there are just too few schools available to go around as convenient polling locations. For the 1st time this last mid-term election, I had to vote in a Baptist church.

When I got there, there was no evidence in the area of the actual voting of anything religious. They had put up temporary privacy walls that hid anything on the building walls. There was no religious literature in evidence and no one was approached while I was there about religion or political matters.

I simply accept it as an operational necessity. All churches are pretty much represented in the list. Not that it condones anything, but there are Christians who are compelled to vote at a couple of Jewish synagogues too, so it's not like it's an exclusionary thing.

{edited by Toto to fix tags}

beth

Most of the people who attend my church live outside of the voting precinct it represents, so they cannot vote there. I am more than happy to vote at the little baptist church down the road from us. I never so much as got a "god bless you" or anything else religious. When a Christian, I would have entered a mosque if it was my voting station. I do think that religious artifacts should be removed from the walls during the sceduled voting time, however, to make it more secularized.

It is really a pain to have voting in churches. It is a lot of work for the people who run the church. I know, because I've had to help clean the mess up the day after.

lisarea

Like I said, I don't personally have a problem with having to vote in a church. However, I would be curious to see what affect the venue has on who turns out. It's my impression that the churches around here have mostly local congregations--for the most part, they're located smack dab in the middle of residential neighborhoods. It would just seem to me that, even if it doesn't discourage others from voting; the congregation, who might already be there, would probably vote in greater numbers, if nothing else.

I've never seen the religious material covered up or anything when I've had to vote in churches. But it's probably significant, too, that I have never been religious, so it doesn't really affect me emotionally to have a bunch of elongated plus signs lying around. So I can't say whether that might actually be traumatic or something for some people.

And, if you take this in light of the fact that Christian legislators have lately taken to walking out of invocations by non-Christians, it would seem disingenuous to claim that the mere presence of a certain brand of theism or nontheism isn't exclusionary to some extent.