Voters get say today on picking Linn supervisors

CEDAR RAPIDS — Linn County voters decide today how future members of the Board of Supervisors are elected.

Polls for the special election will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Last November, voters chose to winnow the board from five supervisors to three. Now, voters will select one of three options for electing them:

At-large: Voters countywide vote on all three supervisors. Districts are eliminated.

At-large/districts: Voters countywide vote for supervisors who live within specific districts.

Districts: Voters in each district vote for a supervisor who lives in their district.

So far, early voting turnout has been relatively low, said Rebecca Stonawski, deputy commissioner of elections with Linn County's Auditor's Office. Of the 2,067 absentee ballots requested, 1,576 had been returned as of Friday.

A special satellite polling location hosted July 20 at the Marion Public Library brought in only 28 votes, she said.

Supporters of the current representation plan, which includes several current Linn County Supervisors and the Linn County Farm Bureau, have argued districts provide for better rural representation by spreading out members of the board in terms of geography and preventing an all-Cedar Rapids board.

But those who recently collected signatures to force the upcoming election on the representation plan — and the November vote that reduced the board from five supervisors to three come 2019 — have said the opposite, that the board doesn't represent rural Linn County.

With the board slated to reduce from five supervisors to three in 2019, one of the two plans that entails district representation will require a remapping from a five-district to a three-district county. Remapping has been placed on hold until after the special election, as an at-large plan would eliminate districts entirely.

Voter polling location information can be found at the county's election services website, www.linncounty.org/157/Election-Services.

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com