Scott Mangold

Voters in the Garland area will need to travel a bit farther to cast their ballots on election day.

With the Garland Community Church of God building no longer available, voters in and around the Garland, Frannie and Deaver areas will now need to head to the Park County Fairgrounds for the Aug. 20 primary and the Nov. 5 general elections.

Park County commissioners made the polling site switch official on Tuesday. It impacts roughly 350 registered voters within Precinct 6-1.

The church building hosted voters for years, but it became unavailable in April, when the congregation decided to move into Powell and put its Garland property up for sale.

Elections staff explored the possibility of moving to the Powell Golf Club, but First Deputy County Clerk Hans Odde indicated it wasn’t an ideal location.

Poll workers would need to make accommodations to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Odde said, while the golf club’s bar would need to shut down for the elections, as state law prohibits the possession of alcohol at a polling location.

He said the golf club president was unenthused about the possibility, expressing “trepidation” about the revenue the club would lose by closing the bar on Aug. 20

“Not a big shocker that the golf course didn’t want to give up an August date,” Commissioner Scott Mangold said before voting to make the 5-mile move to the fairgrounds. “We didn’t want to tick off a whole lot of golfers.”

Mangold also wondered if the county will run into similar issues at other rural polling locations in the future.

“We might end up with centralized locations,” he mused.

However, the situation in Garland differs from nearly all of the other polling sites, as the church is privately owned and has no other facilities nearby. 

And although no one objected to the closure of the Garland site, a broader push for consolidation would likely prove more controversial: A pandemic-era plan to only operate polling sites in Powell, Cody and Meeteetse for the 2020 General Election drew significant pushback and wound up being scrapped.

Besides the fairgrounds, the county’s remaining polling sites include the Cody Auditorium, the Paul Stock Aquatic and Recreation Center, the South Fork Fire Hall, the Wapiti Elementary School, the Clark Pioneer Recreation Center, the Meeteetse Recreation Center and the Heart Mountain Clubhouse.

Residents must vote at their designated polling place on Election Day, though they can alternatively choose to cast an absentee ballot by mail or to vote early at the Park County Courthouse starting 28 days ahead of each election.