GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland School Board is set to finalize plans on Dec. 9 for consolidating election districts for budget and school board votes from five polling places to three.

Albany County informed the district in May that it will no longer build school election ballots nor service school elections.

“This is potentially the largest change we’ve had as a district in many years,” Assistant Superintendent for Business Andrew Van Alstyne told the board at its Nov. 18 meeting.

The reason the county can no longer support school district elections, Van Alstyne said, is the change in the state primary calendar “and additional requirements under Election Law.”

He said Albany County had been a “critical partner,” providing Guilderland’s voting machines, and helping with training and technical support.

Guilderland has traditionally had machines and staff at each of the district’s five elementary schools so that residents living in each area would vote at their neighborhood school.

Guilderland is “trending in the direction of fewer volunteers” to staff the polls, said Van Alstyne, noting, “There are some years where it’s been very, very difficult to staff five sites.”

At the same time, he said, “Our school district topography is not conducive to a single voting location.”

The sprawling district has no centrally located building, he noted “nor do we have two middle schools, one on one end in the town, one on the other end of town, which are often what other districts have done.”

Van Alstyne displayed a chart showing the number of polling places in each of the 11 Suburban Council school districts. Six have just one polling place while two districts have two. East Greenbush has four while Saratoga has six.

Two school board committees — on communication and business practices — considered options for consolidating voting districts without burdening residents and came up with three sites: Altamont, Pine Bush, and Westmere elementary schools.

All residents would be assigned to a specific site to vote. Those living in the Lynnwood catchment area would vote at Pine Bush while those in the Guilderland Elementary catchment area would vote at Westmere.

The district plans to purchase four voting machines and three marking devices that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The estimated cost is $676,500, Van Alstyne said, but with BOCES aid of 60.4 percent the net cost would be about $27,000.

Board member Rebecca Butterfield asked about aligning the school vote with the primary vote. Van Alstyne responded that wouldn’t work because the school district boundaries don’t jibe with municipal boundaries.

Butterfield also noted there was much higher voter participation during the pandemic when ballots were mailed to residents rather than having them vote in person. Van Alstyne explained that ballots now have to be requested by voters rather than a blanket mailing.

This applies to both absentee voting and early voting by mail

“That was an emergency authorization by the governor at the time,” said Superintendent Daniel Mayberry. “So that not existing, it likely would not be allowed at this point.”

“Is it up to us to get volunteers?” asked board member Kelly Person. Van Alstyne said it was.

“We need to emphasize sharing this information with the public,” Van Alstyne said. “This is a dramatic change. We want to be as clear and transparent in a move that may increase the burden to some voters.”