BUCKHANNON – The Upshur County Commission on Wednesday officially implemented changes to magisterial districts and voting precinct lines in Upshur County.

The Upshur County Commission convened a special informational meeting Nov. 17 to discuss the changes, the new state House of Delegates lines and how they will impact the voting precinct boundaries in Upshur County. The results of these changes may be seen in a previous My Buckhannon article here.

During the Dec. 22 special meeting, no community members attended the final public meeting to discuss the changes and they were finalized, and commissioners unanimously approved the order. Upshur County Clerk Carol Smith said she had not received any comments from the public, but Upshur County Commission president Kristie Tenney did receive several questions that she asked during the meeting.

Tenney asked how voters will know where they should vote after the changes go into effect.

“Everyone will get a letter, but that will not be done until after Jan. 15, because of the special election, so it’ll take some time to get that that done, but we will get that out before the May election,” Smith said. “In 15 days, we will publish a copy of this order along with the map with all the precinct boundaries in the newspaper for people to view and it’s on the website for people to see.”

Tenney also asked how voters in precinct nine will be told their polling location has been moved from the courthouse to city hall.

“That change will be in effect for the January election and that has been published in the newspaper, it has been on the website, and they were all notified,” Smith said. “I have ordered signs for the courthouse annex to let people to know their precinct is at city hall and I have ordered signs for city hall, marking it as a polling location and advising voters where to park.”

Voters affected by the changing precincts will receive a letter and their new voter registration card.

“Unfortunately, we have to wait until we can update them registration system, but once we do that, we’ll send everyone their card and a letter that tells them what their new precinct is and what election it takes effect,” Smith said.

One more change was made after the initial planning meeting, which involved taking a small part of precinct 27 and adding it to precinct six, to balance populations in each precinct.