Voter ID cards mailed to reflect precinct changes

In preparation for re-districting, the St. Mary Parish Council, acting on the recommendation of the Legislative Demographic Services Office, has completed and implemented several precinct mergers across the parish, according to the Registrar of Voters Office.
In addition, precincts were renumbered starting with Precinct 3 on the west end of the parish and moving east.
The reason for merging precincts was to eliminate some small precincts, clean up some precinct lines, do away with some double precincts, and make some polling location changes, the office said in a press release.
The ordinance was adopted in October 2019, but the precinct and polling location changes could not become effective until July 1, 2021, for election purposes. Precincts were renumbered so that numbers were contiguous from west to east, with no missing numbers and no precinct numbers with alphabets. This was done upon the recommendation from the Louisiana Legislative Demographic Services.
You can download .pdf file listing all the changes through a link on this story at StMaryNow.com.
Mergers include:
—Merging old precinct 4 with a portion of old precinct 6 – polling location, Baldwin Comm-unity Center.
—Merging old precinct 7 with the rest of old precinct 6 – polling location, Raintree Elem-entary School.
—Merging old precincts 8 and 9 into one – polling location, Sacred Heart Catholic Church Hall.
—Merging old precincts 23 and 23A into one – polling location, St. Mary Alternative School.
—Merging old precincts 24 and 24A into one – polling location, Patterson High School.
—Merging old precincts 38 and 40 into one – polling location, Health Unit/911 Building.
—Merging old precincts 41 and 41A into one – polling location Pharr Chapel Methodist Church Hall.
In total, six double precincts were eliminated. The Baldwin Branch Library and Morgan City Junior High School will no longer be used as polling locations.
The Health Unit/911 Building in Morgan City was chosen as a replacement for Morgan City Junior High School. Two double precincts remain, one at Franklin High School and one at Patterson Civic Center.
New voter identification cards were mailed to all voters except those in Precincts 1, 2 and 3. These three precincts had no changes, so new cards were not needed.
Voter ID cards were put in the mail beginning May 24. All voters in Precincts 4 through 45 should have received their new cards by now.
If you are a voter in any of the 42 precincts that had changes and you have not received your new voter identification card, you should contact the Registrar of Voters Office because there could be a problem with your address.
The phone number for the main office in Franklin is 337-828-4100, ext. 360. You may reach the Morgan City Branch Office at 985-384-8638. Email the Franklin office at st.maryrova@sos.la.gov or the Morgan City office at st.maryrovb@sos.la.gov.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. You may also use the voter portal on the Secretary of State’s Office website and submit an address change electronically.
All changes will be in effect for the Oct. 9 election. Though there is currently no statewide election on Oct. 9, St. Mary Parish has several tax propositions on the ballot. They include:
—Consolidated School District No. 5, tax continuation (entire parish).
—Recreation District No. 2, bond proposition and millage Renewal (Siracusa area).
—Recreation District No. 4, 2.24 mill tax proposition (Patterson area).
—Water & Sewer Commission No. 2, tax renewal (Bayou Vista area).
Also on the ballot is the office of city marshal, city of Morgan City. This is a special election to replace Robert P. Darce Sr., who resigned for health reasons.
Deadline to place propositions on the ballot for the October election is June 16.