Commissioner James Cawley made the proposal at a meeting of the county's Board of Elections, composed of the three county commissioners.

Cawley suggested that the polling place for residents who live in and around the Creekside Apartments be moved from the Polanka Park social hall to the St. Mary Medical Center health facility in the Bensalem Square Shopping Center.

The proposed move would relocate the polling place to a site closer to Creekside residents.

In April 2007, county officials voted to move the polling place from its 30-year location in the Creekside Apartments to the Polanka Park hall, about a mile away. The move forced voters to walk along a stretch of road with no sidewalks and across a busy intersection.

Many Creekside residents are elderly, minority and low-income, and do not have cars, according to the suit. Creekside residents make up 75 percent of the mostly Democratic district's voters.

Judge Petrese B. Tucker heard arguments in the case on Monday and Tuesday in federal court, but has yet to issue a ruling.

The decision to move the hall was made by the then-Board of Elections, a substitute panel of Common Pleas Court judges who were filling in because the county commissioners were up for election that year. Republican Commissioners Cawley and Charles Martin and Diane Marseglia, a Democrat, did not serve on the Board of Elections when the decision was made.

Bucks officials say they recommended moving the polling place from Creekside because they had received complaints about crime at the complex.

Cawley said he recommended the compromise after visiting the area and talking with officials of St. Mary who, he said, agreed to host a polling place. The location alleviates concerns about crime and accessibility, Cawley said.

The board likely will vote on the measure at a meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Bensalem Municipal Building.

Kathleen Prescod, lead plaintiff in the suit, said she "feels better" about the proposed location because it's closer, but has some reservations because the health facility is near a restaurant where rowdy youths sometimes hang out at night.

If the board approves the move to the shopping center, it would render moot a preliminary injunction requested by the plaintiffs, said attorney Marc Weinstein, who is representing Creekside residents. The plaintiffs had requested that the polling place temporarily be moved from the social hall back to Creekside so that residents could vote in the coming presidential election.

But the "underlying" lawsuit will continue, Weinstein said, to determine whether county officials intentionally disenfranchised voters in the district.