NECC’s Haverhill campus will take on a new role this Presidential primary voting season and in future political races. On Tuesday, March 6, it will serve as one of five newly minted polling locations for the voters of Haverhill.

The Haverhill City Council recently approved a proposal by the city’s Board of Registrars to move five voting places, abandoning several old ones and creating several new ones.

Voters who historically cast their ballots at the Second Baptist Church on Amesbury Line Road will vote at NECC in the Hartleb Tech Center from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.

“We are happy to serve the city of Haverhill in this capacity,” said NECC President Lane Glenn. “Voters should find we have ample parking adjacent to our handicapped accessible building. This should, in no way, impact our students and their daily activities.”

Approval of the new polling places was the final step in redrawing voting lines based on new population figures from the 2010 federal census which put the city’s population at 60,879.

By law, each of the city’s precincts must be within 5 percentage points of the population of the average precinct. Those that didn’t meet that standard had to be redrawn. Five precincts had too many people and six too few, officials said.

The state accepted the city’s new voting map according to Registrar Robert Des Marais.
Des Marais said officials at Northern Essex Community College were happy to accommodate the city’s request to use their facilities for voting.

The primary goal in moving polling places was to put voters closer to polls, officials said. Any voter whose polling place has been changed will be notified by mail prior to the March 6 election, city officials said.