A Portland group has gathered 1,500 signatures necessary to force the city council to reconsider a plan to reduce the number of polling places from 16 to six, City Clerk Linda Cohen said today.

Save Our Neighborhood Polling Places submitted the petition signed by nearly 2,500 Portland voters two weeks ago.

Cohen said her staff certified 1,500 signatures needed to bring the matter to the council on July 21. The council is expected to schedule a public hearing on the issue on Aug. 18, she said.

The petition calls for an ordinance to require the city to keep 16 polling places for all state and federal elections. The council could consolidate polling places only for local elections when voter turnout is expected to be unusually small.

The council may either adopt the ordinance as proposed or send it to voter referendum in November.

Opponents of the reduction say it would reduce voters' access, increase lines at the polls and discourage some people from voting, especially low-income voters who don't have cars. They're particularly concerned about the effect on November's presidential election.

The council approved the reduction in polling places in May as part of the 2008-09 municipal budget, which reduced many public services, consolidated several departments and eliminated 93 city jobs through attrition and layoffs.

The reduction will save $12,000 to $15,000 on each election, Cohen said. The city usually has two or more elections per year, and they cost as much as $40,000 each.

Under the reduction plan, each of the city's five voting districts on the mainland would have one polling place. Now, Districts 1 and 2 have two polling places each; Districts 3, 4 and 5 have three each.

The plan kept a polling place on Peaks Island but eliminated polling places on Cliff and Great Diamond islands, to save about $2,500 per election.

Councilors Kevin Donoghue and David Marshall supported a proposal to keep polling places on Cliff and Great Diamond, but it failed.

Ultimately, the council unanimously approved a $185 million city budget that included the reduction in polling places.

Cohen said city officials are talking about postponing any change in the number of polling places until after the Nov. 4 election.

They're also talking about reducing the number of polling places from 16 to 10, which would allow two polling places per district. Cohen said that was the number she recommended in her initial budget proposal.

City officials have yet to decide where the remaining mainland polling places would be.

Cohen has said she wants to work with various voter groups to locate polling places in each district that have adequate parking and handicapped accessibility.

She also plans to promote alternatives such as absentee voting and voting early in the city clerk's office.