One of the latest plans to streamline government in Minot is to establish one, central polling place – at the Minot Municipal Auditorium.

We’ll see how that goes over.

That being said, there are a lot of good reasons to part with the old ways, the days when Minot had 17 precincts, all needing poll workers to facilitate voting.

With one central polling place, a lot fewer people would be needed. That was just one of the pluses City Finance Director David Lakefield pointed out Wednesday at a Minot City Council meeting.

Other reasons for proposing a single site versus four as the city currently has include:

– difficulty in finding handicapped accessible polling places.

– difficulty in finding polling places because schools and many churches no longer are available.

– overlapping of boundaries of different voting districts, such as legislative, schools and city.

– reduces the chance and the inconveniences that occur if someone goes to a wrong polling place.

– reduces the cost of an election.

It’s hard to argue with such compelling reasons, especially that last one – saving money. It’s something both the city and county need to chip away at in any way they can without shortchanging taxpayers.

Council members voted 7-0 to return a favorable response to the plan submitted by the county auditor’s office. The proposal still requires a final decision by the county.

The best part of this cost-saving idea as opposed to some others, like a new garbage collection plan for instance, is that it can be reversed immediately if it doesn’t work as envisioned, or if voters decide they just don’t like it.