In attendance:
Madlyn Hightower (Chairperson)
Deb Cox (Supervisor of Elections)
Ray Corbett (Member)
…..
Don Destefano (Brooks County Board of Elections)
Jim Spangler (audio visual retailer)
Gretchen Quarterman (former Chair of the Lowndes County Democratic Party)
Dr. Dennis Marks (Vice Chair of the Lowndes County Democratic Party)
A/V pitch and discussion
The board is buying new tv/audio/visual presentation system for their meeting space. Equipment purchase could include three 80-inch tvs plus A/V tools and a marquis in front of the building.
Budget
- Chairperson Hightower is asking for a $1/hr raise for the part-timers. They’ve been making minimum wage for ten years.
- The poll managers are working about thirty-two hours. Chairperson Hightower suggests the board pay them minimum wage.
Precinct Openings/2016 Election
Quarterman: We’re not closing any more precincts, as you’ve said [Chairperson Hightower]. We have a lesser budget than we’ve had before. Is there any chance we might open a precinct?
Chairperson Hightower: everything is static. We have extended early voting to every day. Including weekend days. We’re doing direct mails to let people know: “here’s are a couple absentee applications, here are the election dates, if you wanna’ be a poll worker let us know.” Now the board has more poll worker applications than ever before. It’s great. We’ve hit about one third of the county with these mailings so far. We will be running ads in the paper. Any word you [the Democratic Party] can put out would be great too.
Quarterman: do you need volunteers to help with that? I’ll see if we can rustle up some volunteers to stuff envelopes.
Chairperson Hightower: sure. We’re still getting absentee ballot applications back [from those mailings]. It’s great.
Member Corbett: it’s hard work and it’s gonna’ be long hours during this election. And these people (motions to the board members) are gonna’ be suffering. We’re going to need security here at this location, especially when we’re here early and staying late.
Chairperson Hightower: the sheriff and chief both say they’ll do whatever we need. All early voting will be here (the Lowndes County Board of Elections office location). We proposed two additional locations for early voting but that didn’t work, so we just extended the hours here.
Dr. Marks: what about if this location gets overrun?
Chairperson Hightower: our backup plan if we get overrun is Rainwater. We can open a location there in about an hour and can throw out blast PSAs.
Recruit a Veteran Program
Chairperson Hightower: The Secretary of State rolled out the Recruit a Veteran program. If you get a vet poll worker (and make a specific effort to recruit them), Secretary Kemp will send them a letter thanking them and send them a special pin to wear on Election Day.
Upcoming Dates
Wednesday, Feb 10th 6-8pm here (Lowndes County Board of Elections office) is the chamber campaign academy.
Quarterman: that was excellent (the last time it was held)
Quarterman: The Democratic Party is having candidate recruitment event on February 1st. You (the Chairperson) are always invited to come and say your bit.
- Topics: raising money. Getting people to do what they say they’re gonna do with regard to campaigns, etc.
- Will be at Momma June’s. 6pm.
- Chairperson Hightower is going to go to that meeting to answer any questions.
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