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STANFORD — With the advent of the new paper-trail voting machines comes a change for some Lincoln County voters.

To save on the cost of purchasing the new paper ballot scanners, Lincoln County Clerk George O. “Sonny” Spoonamore IV has moved two precincts to new locations and combined several other precincts which already were in the same building but in different locations within the building to reduce the number of machines required for elections. The number dropped from 17 to 11 for scanners and 17 to 10 for ballot marking devices.

The voters in Stanford 4 and Kings Mountain will be experiencing a big change beginning with the May primary, with the precincts being combined with other precincts at new locations.

Stanford 4 is being moved from the Stanford Fire Department to the Stanford Baptist Church Christan Life Center, which is where Stanford 5 already votes. Kings Mountain voters will have to journey down the road a bit to cast their votes now, with the precinct, which had been at the Kings Mountain Community Center, moved down U.S. 27 to Highland Elementary. The Halls Gap precinct is also at Highland.

A total of four precincts are being relocated by the Clerk’s office, with McKinney 1 and McKinney 2 also being moved to a new site. Due to the closing of McKinney Elementary School, the McKinney 1 and McKinney 2 precincts are being moved to the Geneva Fire Station.

Four other precincts currently in the same building are being combined into one place at the site.

The Stanford 1 and Stanford 2 precincts, which are both at Stanford Elementary, will be combined with one ADA machine and a central scanner for both precincts. The Crab Orchard 1 and Crab Orchard 2 precincts, which were previously in the Crab Orchard Elementary cafeteria and gym, will now be together in the gym with a central scanner. The Waynesburg 1 and Waynesburg 2 precincts will be combined at Waynesburg Elementary School and Moreland 1 and Moreland 2 are being combined at New Hope Baptist Church.

In each instance, there will be a sign-in book for each precinct within the building.

Spoonamore said that Frankfort has to approve all of the changes for handicapped accessibility, but does not foresee a problem.

For the upcoming election, there will still be the same amount of poll workers with the required two Republican and two Democrat workers at each precinct.

Lincoln County Judge Executive Jim W. Adams Jr. informed the fiscal court that there was currently a bill in the legislature which could reduce the number of poll workers required for combined precincts.