Two of Surry County’s least populous voting precincts may become one under a proposal the county’s Electoral Board floated at its April 14 meeting.

The proposed change has drawn opposition from Claremont’s Town Council.

Surry has six precincts, four of which correlate with the Surry, Bacon’s Castle, Dendron and Carsley voting districts represented on the Board of Supervisors and School Board. The Claremont voting district, which spans 48 square miles from the western outskirts of the town of Surry to the town of Claremont at the Prince George County line, accounts for the remaining two precincts. Voters who live closer to the town of Claremont currently vote at the Claremont Town Hall at 4115 Spring Grove Ave. Those who live closer to the town of Surry vote in the Spring Grove precinct at the county Parks and Recreation Department center at 205 Enos Farm Drive.

Virginia law requires that no county polling precinct contain fewer than 100 registered voters.

“We’re barely making that,” said Electoral Board Chairman William Etchison. 

He said the matter had been discussed on and off for the past four years.

The Claremont District had 1,282 people as of the 2020 Census, with Black voters accounting for just under half of that total. Roughly a quarter of the district’s residents were estimated to be under age 18 as of 2023, according to the American Community Survey.

Virginia Department of Elections data listed 681 active registered voters assigned to the Claremont precinct and 360 assigned to the Spring Grove precinct of Jan. 1 of this year.

Some 540, or 79%, of the Claremont’s total, and 250, or 69%, of Spring Grove’s, cast ballots in last year’s presidential race, according to Virginia Department of Elections data.

The electoral board members did not say which of the two polling locations, if either, would remain the site where Claremont District voters would cast their ballots. The Claremont Town Hall and the Parks and Recreation center are roughly 12 miles apart.

If the board chooses to move forward with the change, there is a limited window to do so.

Etchison said the window for changing a polling precinct ahead of the June 17 primary election has already elapsed. State law further prohibits changing a polling site within 60 days of this year’s Nov. 4 general election, which leaves a window of June 18 to Sept. 5.

Any change in polling precincts the Electoral Board recommends must also be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors.

“We’re just one step along the way,” Etchison said.

Claremont Town Councilwoman Sue Gilbert, during the portion of the Electoral Board meeting reserved for public comments, said she and fellow council members would be “strongly opposed” to moving the polling site out of the Town Hall, which she said is already well equipped with handicap-accessibility to facilitate in-person voting.

The Electoral Board contends combining the two precincts would save the county between $975 and $1,275 in election officer pay.

“It’s not something that necessarily we’re forced to do; it’s something that makes fiscal sense,” Etchison said.