The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections has joined a number of other county elections boards across the state in asking the state Board of Elections to hold off on making more election rule changes until after November’s presidential election.
Proposed and recently approved state rule changes “are dangerous and appear designed to set up election staff for failure by causing confusion and chaos, potentially compromising the legitimacy of the upcoming election,” according to a resolution adopted by the ACC Board of Elections at its monthly meeting Sept. 17. New rules so near the election ”would create unnecessary confusion among both the public and the dedicated poll workers and election officials who are critical to ensuring a smooth and efficient voting process,” according to the resolution.
“We have not had any problems the way things have been in the past. We’re always getting compliments,” said board member Willa Fambrough as she voted in favor of the resolution.
“They’re creating undue burdens for staff,” said board chair Rocky Raffle of the new rules, pushed by Donald Trump allies on the state elections board.
The Athens-Clarke County resolution is similar to ones passed by a growing number of other counties calling for a 90-day “quiet period” on changes to election rules. The Cobb County elections board unanimously passed its resolution earlier this week, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On the Athens-Clarke County board, the only “no” vote was by Republican party appointee Ann Till.
The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, the statewide organization representing elections officials, has also called for the 90-day moratorium in the wake of last-minute election rules changes being considered or recently adopted by the Republican-dominated state elections board.
The state board has recently broadened local boards’ authority to challenge election results before they certify county vote totals; one change approved in August allows county boards to undertake a “reasonable inquiry” to ensure voting results are accurate, without defining what is reasonable or an inquiry.
On Friday, Sept. 20, the state board passed another parcel of rule changes, including one requiring poll workers at each precinct to hand-count ballots to ensure the machine counts are correct. The Trump faction on the board approved the rules despite a letter from Republican Attorney General Chris Carr’s office stating that the board was likely overstepping its bounds and coming into conflict with Georgia law.
Meanwhile, poll worker training and other preparations for the upcoming election are already well underway. Early voting begins Oct. 15 and continues through Nov. 1, the Friday before Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Clarke County rolls now list 83,100 voters, including 16,072 inactive voters, Director of Elections and Voter Registration Charlotte Sosebee told the board as she updated them on election preparations. Inactive voters are eligible to vote in the upcoming election; the status simply means the voter has not been active in recent elections.
The office has processed 164 registration cancellations, she said—88 for people who moved out of state (Georgia and most other states notify each other when a voter moves and re-registers in another state); four by people who came to the office to cancel; 19 because they were convicted of felonies; and 48 to report deceased voters. Felons are ineligible to vote, but once the sentence is complete, felons in Georgia can have their voting rights restored.
Athens-Clarke County has so far received no time-consuming voter challenges, Sosebee said. In some other Georgia counties, Republican activists have used a Georgia law to challenge the registrations of hundreds of eligible voters.
The Athens-Clarke elections office has received hundreds of applications for absentee ballots, but many have been incomplete, lacking signatures or other required information, elections assistant Audra Taylor told the board. Many of the incomplete ones are applications distributed by a non-government organization, according to Sosebee. The elections office is sending out new applications to many who’ve submitted incomplete ones, but the applications the elections office sends out are different in an important way: the required information is highlighted on the forms that come from the elections office. Elections workers have been able to clear up some of the omissions with a phone call, but it delays the process, Taylor said, and signatures can’t be done over the phone.
Absentee ballots will be mailed beginning Oct. 7 to those requesting them. Sosebee urged those wanting to vote absentee to get their applications and then their ballots in soon so any issues can be dealt with, and to contact the elections office if they haven’t received a ballot within about a week of submitting a request. Oct. 7 is also the last day to register to vote or to register an address change.
Sosebee also told the board Clarke County’s Spanish-language ballot has now been approved and will be an option for voters during the election.
Not least, Sosebee informed the board she was one of just two elections officials inducted this year into the National Association of Election Officials Election Center’s Hall of Fame.
Sosebee’s staff nominated her for the honor, awarded on a career basis with criteria such as community service and participation in state and national elections organizations.
Speaking after the meeting, Sosebee said voters should be sure to check their registration status and information on the Georgia Secretary of State’s “My Voter Page,” where they can also find out how to request absentee ballots and other information. Voters can call the local office for help with any problems that can’t be corrected online, she said. A handful of Athens voters recently found their zip codes had been incorrectly changed because of a transcription error, while a few others found their addresses were not in the system. Both issues were fixed, she said.
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