Countywide voting will still be in place during the two weeks of early voting, but voters will have to go to their assigned polling location if they plan to vote on Election Day for the March 3 primary.

Voters in Williamson County will no longer be able to cast their ballot at any polling location on primary Election Day. Instead, they will only be able to vote at their assigned neighborhood polling place.

The county’s Republican Party has decided it no longer wants to offer countywide polling locations on primary Election Day, and under current state law, the county’s Democratic Party has no choice but follow Republicans’ lead. Both parties must agree to using countywide polling locations for them to be offered.

“We decided, as a party … to return to precinct based polling,” said Michelle Evans, the chair of the Williamson County GOP. “It just means that you are voting in your community, as an overwhelming majority of voters do anyway.”

Williamson County, she said, only began offering countywide polling places in 2013. Evans said for her and other Republicans, the shift back to precinct based polling places is about “being more confident in the outcomes of our elections.”

“I could get into all of those details, but at the end of the day, it’s because we can,” she said. “It’s legal. It’s something we’re entitled to do, and it’s something that our party would like us to do.”