The St. Helena City Council wants the city’s polling places reopened, and it’s willing to go to court to make it happen.

The council voted 5-0 Tuesday to sue Napa County Registrar of Voters John Tuteur in an effort to get the polling places reopened.

In the last few years, Tuteur has drawn fire for closing polling places around Napa County, though voters have participated heavily in elections even after their polling places were converted to vote-by-mail precincts.

In St. Helena, he has been criticized for closing the polling place at Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park. This year, he closed the polling place at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School.

Tuteur said state law gives him the option of closing polling places where fewer than 250 people are assigned to vote.

Councilman Eric Sklar, who was one of the voters who was forced to cast his ballot by mail when the middle school polling place was closed, told Tuteur, “You may have the authority to eliminate polling places, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.”

“The people here want to continue the tradition of voting on Election Day at a polling place as they’ve done in this country for 200-plus years,” he said. “We’ve asked you not to take them away, and then you take away more.”

Tuteur told the council his decision to close precincts was prompted by the long lines that formed on Election Day in November 2006, which he said caused some potential voters to walk away from the polls without voting.

Closing polling places allows limited resources to be reallocated to other polling places, and that eliminates lines,  Tuteur said.

If closing polling places is a matter of cost, “Let us pay for an extra couple of machines, let us pay for extra staff,”  Councilwoman Bonnie Schoch said.

But the decision had nothing to do with saving money, Tuteur said; in fact, closing polling places is more expensive than keeping them open because of added postage costs.

Tuteur said he’ll review all the precincts before the next election to see if any previously closed polling places have risen above the 250-voter threshold and therefore need to be restored. But he refused to give the council a commitment that he would reopen St. Helena polling places.

On Wednesday morning, Tuteur wrote to the council proposing that instead of resorting to litigation, the city could move its municipal elections to a separate date other than a statewide election date.

In that case, Tuteur said he would be willing to keep all six St. Helena polling places open. The danger of long lines would be minimized because voter turnout is generally lower when no statewide issues are on the ballot.

“The city would assume full responsibility for any voters being disenfranchised if long lines occurred at any polling place,”  Tuteur said. “I would also take the city up on its offer to assist in recruiting poll workers to staff these standalone municipal election polling places.”