Any election place should be policed. I'm not going to discount any location that adds to the vote.

I have big problems with the propaganda....

If they're going to rent out their space to the gov't, they should abide by government rules. This should cause revocation of their tax-exempt status.

My old polling spot was a church & first thing U saw was a big money raising poster for sending evangelists to the Middle East.

It is illegal to have any politically connected anything posted, while the polls are open. But it is a common problem.
The church where I used to go to vote in Fargo ND tried that and got threatened with legal action. The next election, you had a hard time believing it was a church after you entered. There were no anything on the entrance tables, walls, bulletin boards, that was church or religious related. It was conspicuous by its absence.

That church or some other one were pretty much the only choices in our semi-rural precinct. Thirty plus years ago when we moved to this precinct there were no businesses or meeting places with buildings that could accommodate the machines and the number of people needed for voting. The particular church was the largest within the precinct and had the best parking and access for mobility impaired people. The church was careful not to leave out strongly religious or political items - though they were not terribly political. They did not remove all the religious accouterments - the huge handstitched copy of "The Last Supper" remained up and the hymnals that the choir used in their practices stayed in stacks to one side.

About ten years ago the historic country store built a place meant for weddings and other events and that became our polling place. It is good that voting is out of the church; bad that it is at the outer edge of the precinct rather than close to the center. For us to vote there, rather than voting on the way into town, we have to drive over two miles away from town. The parking lot is gravel so when my knees were bad, it was uncomfortable for me to walk through it.

I've only voted at the new place twice since they do not offer early voting at that location. Our early voting locations near to us are branch libraries. One is about 6-7 miles away to the west, the other is about 8-10 miles south. Either one could be 'on the way' into town depending on how I arrange my various stops.

I think many places have the problem we used to - churches may be the only locations with the facilities to handle the volume of people needed. But putting up a banner with a overtly political message should NOT be allowed, IMO. I'd complain to the local supervisor of elections or whatever office manages these things if it were within the specified distance from the polling location, the same as if a regular political sign were in that line.

my polling place is a church. It doesn't need to be. We used to vote in schools and there are plenty of other places that could be used.

being off from school. It would be difficult to run polling in the school while it is in session. Replace Columbus Day with it.

the school at which I taught was also a polling place. Teachers hate it because our cars ALWAYS get dented by thoughtless assholes, but the actual school day never misses a beat.

Not only because of the religious displays, but the last time we were in the gym while they were holding a 2 hour service in there. They put up temporary partitions around us, but the partitions were plastered with church's propaganda and the speaker system was turned up so we couldn't avoid hearing every word of the service. Complaining to the church didn't help nor did complaining to the county election supervisors. So I quit. Now I early vote which is held in another location.

The only signs the church posts are directional .... "Voting this way!"

We take separation of church and state VERY seriously ... I am allowed to put League of Women Voters guides in the lobby for information, but nobody is allowed to promote one political agenda over another.

Wait...

Dump churches as polling places. Good luck finding sites that will fit the requirements for a precinct polling place.

political candidate or issue advocacy within the restricted zone near the polling place. Locally I believe the ordinance requires 100' or 150' radius clear zone with no candidate or issue signs or activists at the polling place. Out near the entrance to the parking lot was beyond the clear zone and people were waving signs in support of issues, Romney, Obama, just like any other street corner in town. I have no problem with who owns the building if there is a clear zone where activists cannot work the line of folks waiting to vote. The law applied to churches as well as public schools and any other polling location universally.

These laws may not exist everywhere, but should if they don't.

There was apparently a law regarding how far from the ballot-box a sign could be, since there were all these markers to tell you how far you were from the actual polling place.

I used to vote at a church (in Minneapolis), with no problems. In many communities, there just aren't enough adequate spaces to find enough precinct voting places without using church basements or community rooms.

I've also voted at an public elementary school (in Massachusetts), and now at a union hall (in Chicago), where there's an electronic billboard that could conceivably post pro-union messages on election day. Each of these places might have the same issue if a ballot question involved some kind of education reform or right-to-work or pension reform. There are laws regarding the distance from a polling place that election materials can be displayed. These differ from state to state. In Massachusetts, you couldn't park in the school's lot to cast your vote with a bumper sticker for a candidate unless you went to the far reaches of the adjunct lot. They had people outside who would come and tell you to move your car if you parked too close to the building.

If we ban churches from being used as polling places, many municipalities would have a hard time finding available space for voting.

If there was ever a place that was susceptible to electioneering it's a church.

The church where I voted had no signs up that I saw, but I believe religion has NO place in government, including using its buildings to vote in.

There was never any propaganda. Although I live in a liberal area part of NJ, the pastors were always careful to leave politics at the church door. Which is how it should be since not everyone is of the same political persuasion.

We didn't even allow yard signs for school ballot issues on our property, even though we were next door to the neighborhood middle school, ran an after-school tutoring program, and had a majority of members who felt passionately about funding for public education.

No means no.

Most of our members are liberal, but there are some who are not and they are welcome in our church too. There has never been any overt politicking, although the church supports liberal causes (such as holding vigils at a jail that houses illegal immigrants who have committed no crimes other than being in the country illegally). My church is also involved with the homeless and feeds them lunch every day (the only church in town to do so). The shelter takes care of breakfast and dinner, but I digress. Come election time, the only sign was the one that announced the place to be a voting location and that the flag was placed at the entrance of the church hall. A few years ago the city moved the site to another location.

Of course, I vote in a dark blue area of SoCal.