The State of Georgia Covers most of the Cost of Coronavirus Prevention at the Polls

According to the Polk County Board of Elections, the State of Georgia is covering 90 percent of the costs for protective and cleaning equipment related to Coronavirus-related threats at the polls. The following includes brief notes taken by a Peanut Gallery volunteer as a public service only. Contact the Polk County Board of Elections for questions or official information.

Polk BOE meeting 4-14-20 10:00-10:30am

Chair Pete Buckner

Ryan Robinson

Richard Long

Lee Ann George Director of elections

Brande Coggins Staff

Voter Initative:

Cedar Valley arts and crafts festival has been postponed until June.

We could not do the high school voter registration drive that is required in April, due to Covid-19, as they ease restrictions we will be scheduling more events and festivals to do our voter education.

We try to post every day on Facebook and we plan to reach out to our contact at WG8A radio station to keep voters informed about any changes.

Poll Workers, PPE and early voting:

We lost a few poll workers for the May election,hopefully they’ll come back if things die down in June.

We believe cutting the number of poll workers at  five locations is a necessity at this time, but we plan on leaving Rockmart and Cedartown fully staffed. We will leave it up to the managers whether or not they want to fully staff their polling location.

The Polk County Government is trying to procure masks, gloves, sanitizer, lysol spray and clorox wipes for all of our precincts, including early voting. During the March election we were sanitizing tables, machines and printers. We have also looked at sneeze guards.

The state will reimburse 90 percent up to $5000 for any protective or cleaning supplies.

Early Voting will begin May 18 and run for  three weeks with the mandated Saturday and the extended hours for the last Tuesday and Thursday.

If you would like to volunteer to attend BOE meetings and report the findings to The Peanut Gallery, please contact [email protected]. Our volunteers assist us in holding BOEs accountable and keeping citizens informed.