The city approved an ordinance to repeal a previous ordinance that required nonresident property owners of McMinnville to vote by absentee ballot. The city Board of Mayor and Alderman approved Ordinance No. 1852 on Tuesday which would repeal and/or rescind Ordinance No. 1845.

Alderman Keri Morton said, “I just think this was very confusing to a lot of the voters in this last election, so I’m glad to see us going ahead and getting this behind us.”

Vice Mayor Steve Harvey said, “I didn’t have a real strong feeling either way. But there’s not a huge amount of those voters, but I think every one of them was not too happy about it.”

Mayor Ryle Chastain responded, “That’s the feedback that I got as well.”

Alderman Rachel Kirby said, “Can we summarize for Miss (Alderman Deitra) Dunlap?”

Chastain responded, “So the Election Commission approached the city of McMinnville, Viola, Morrison and Centertown and asked us to require all non-city resident voters who own property in those areas to vote only by absentee ballot.

“Meaning, they wouldn’t be able to vote in person in the precincts where their property is located so, in theory, it was supposed to make things easier on the Election Commission. But those property rights voters did not like being told they can only use a mail-in ballot, so that’s been kind of the feedback from the community; they don’t want to do that.”

Harvey said, “Let’s just knock it out.”

Chastain said, “Since we’re rescinding and repealing this, Morrison, Viola and Centertown won’t be able to approve it either. I mean, I believe the feedback was overwhelming that people wanted to be able to vote in person.”

The other aldermen expressed their agreement with the mayor. The ordinance was unanimously passed by the Board, and nonresident property owners will be able to vote in-person at the next election.