The Daviess County Clerk’s Office has presented a new precinct map to state election officials, reducing the number of Daviess County voting precincts from 85 to 56. But according to Chief Deputy Richard House, his office ran into snags with wet and dry precinct differences.
The original plan, House said, was to get the number of precincts down to 50. But six different precinct consolidations would have combined wet and dry counties, which could have presented a serious problem to local businesses.
House gave the example of North Seven Hills, a wet precinct, and Pleasant Valley, a dry precinct, which were slated to be combined into what state officials refer to as a “moist” precinct.
Under the “moist” precinct, if Pleasant Valley petitioned a wet/dry election and it failed, meaning the voters chose dry, the entire consolidation, including what was the North Seven Hills precinct, would not be allowed to sell alcohol. The Highway 54 Walmart, among other businesses, is located in that precinct.
“We didn’t feel that was best for businesses in those precincts,” House said. “It could have caused chaos.”
Ultimately, the Clerk’s Office decided to let the six dry precincts they had hoped to combine stand alone. Should those precincts elect to become wet in the future, House said his office will work to combine them as originally planned.
In order to come to this decision, House said his office along with County Attorney Claud Porter and the Daviess County Public Library had to conduct extensive research on the history of wet/dry elections in Daviess County.
“After Prohibition ended, all precincts were wet, but Daviess County precincts quickly elected to become dry,” House said, noting that votes were overwhelmingly against the sale of alcohol at that time. Since then more and more precincts have chosen to return to a wet status, allowing businesses to sell alcohol within their limits.
According to House, in 2002 there were 25 to 30 dry precincts remaining. Today there are 12. House said he expects to the rest of those to slowly change to wet precincts.
House said the plan that was sent to Frankfort can’t be finalized until after the May primary election, but the state must make a decision on Daviess County’s precinct consolidation by June 4.
