BATON ROUGE — With early voting ending Tuesday, some residents in North Baton Rouge are raising concerns about limited access to polling sites in their area. 

Charles Bethley is a longtime resident of North Baton Rouge and said that traveling from the heart of North Baton Rouge to the nearest early voting location is not easy. For him, the nearest early polling site is downtown at city hall.

“I have to cross Florida Boulevard, which dissects the parish and the city, just to go to the governmental building,” Bethley said.

He said that he’s advocated for years for an early voting site closer to his community and that this creates a barrier for his community members to early vote.

“You have to ask yourself, why in North Baton Rouge, with a significant population, we don’t have any early voting sites?” Bethley said.

Currently, East Baton Rouge Parish has five early voting locations, none of which are in North Baton Rouge. The Registrar of Voters for East Baton Rouge Steve Raborn said that he understands the community's desire for more polling locations, but they are stretched thin with a limited amount of resources. 

“Early voting is based on a regional basis, so we just can’t have one in every community because of cost and staffing issues,” Raborn said. 

Later, Raborn noted that three locations were established decades ago by his office and that two more were added more recently. In 2007, the State Archives building was set up through legislative action, and the Central Branch Library was added through a memorandum among the registrar's office, the Metro Council and the Secretary of State.

He said a new office set to open next year at the old Woman's Hospital complex on Airline at Goodwood and would likely serve voters better because it is a larger facility with increased parking.

So far, early voting turnout has doubled since the 2008 election when Barack Obama was elected president, with a current turnout rate of 25 percent.

Bethley believes turnout could be even higher if voting sites were more accessible. 

“I think if we had more early voting sites in North Baton Rouge, you would see the turnout increase,” he said.

The Capital Area Transit System will waive fees on Election Day.