Well, I never thought it was weird until now. My polling place is the local Jewish community center (I'm not Jewish). It's not a synagogue or temple or anything, just like a big rec space with classrooms, a daycare, and admin offices. They have a summer camp every year and a food festival in the fall. It's super convenient being like three blocks from my house. When I lived in a different part of town, I voted at an old folks home that I think was run by a church, but I'm not sure. There's a public elementary school right down the street, but it's much smaller than the community center with a lot less parking.
I think a JCC is pretty different from an actual church. JCC's are meant to be community centers and, at least the one near me, is open to anyone. Religious buildings have the problem of being legally protected from ADA.
You know what has to be accessible? Public schools. You know what is right across the street from the two churches that have been my designated voting location? Public schools.
But then all the home skooled Republicans would complain that it's against their parental rights to have to deal with public edukation and their children's might end up hearing about those evil "A-B-3"s.
"It's 'always' been this way and I don't think we should change" (even if it hasn't always been this way)
It seems to depend on the area. I've voted in school gyms, churches, and civic centers. Churches are generally empty on Tuesdays and have reasonable parking, so it makes sense.
my close friend just volunteered as a poll worker for the PA presidential primaries which was held in a church, and she sent me a photo of the very anti-choice pamphlets they had laid out not exactly in line-of-sight to where you walk into and through to vote, but very, very close by
my area has used them along with vfw halls and and condo lobbies (way convenient before mail in) such but I believe the location is required to be accesible to be used.
I think the main reason churches have been used is that they have big rooms which aren't in use during the weekday, whereas with schools and government buildings you're displacing the people who would normally be in that place.
There's also a bunch of old ladies, who know where everything is and are available to help, in most churches. At least that's true of the (accessible and progressive) UCC church I grew up in, which is still a polling place. With cookies and percolator coffee.
That said, I've voted by mail for decades because it's just easier, especially since I'm filling out both my ballot and that of my quadriplegic spouse. Under their guidance of course.
You don’t always have a government building in close proximity. I once lived in an area where the polling place was someone’s garage because there was no better option.
One of the polling places in my area is a Masonic temple, theres always a protest outside on election day. The Masons just pay some folks to give out free water and snacks to fuck with the protesters more.
Also, not every government building has a large enough room to set up 8-10 voting stations with minimum separations between them, and tables for passing out ballots, and voting boxes, and enough space to accommodate people waiting to vote. In fact, a lot of them DON'T have such a space, and before someone says "but electronic voting", a good handful of states pivoted away from those years ago thanks to weirdos bitching about how hackable they were and all that.
I knew churches were exempt from ada compliance. Shitty, but par for the course. I'd never put together the fact that many voting sites are churches. Holy shit.
