Gwinnett County Board of Elections Special Meeting 09/09/20

Advanced Voting

• Are we going to be using the fairgrounds?
  • Available for us to use for advance in-person voting
  • Will not be in the building that we were in for the primary 
  • Going to the entertainment building
    • 9600 square feet
  • Charged a rental fee possibly 
    • Would not come out of general funds
    • Grants are available as well as the CARES Act
    • Estimated cost: $120,000-$140,000
  • Closer to the Sugarloaf side than the Davis Road side 
    • Access through gate 3 or 4 
• 8 traditional locations
  • HQ
  • Lucky Shoals
    • Gyms-more space
  • Bogan
    • Gym 
  • Lenora 
    • Gym 
  • George Pierce 
• Three locations weren’t open during runoff and primaries due to social distancing:
  • Dacula
    • Community room
  • Shorty Howell
  • Mountain Park
• Smaller numbers though 
• There will be lines. They are anticipating lines.
• these are being opened for convenience of voters 
• PPE required unless a doctor’s note is provided. 
• Gloves, hand sanitizer, and sanitizing solutions will be provided 
• Allowing people to plug stuff in but in separate rooms to protect the equipment 
• Motion: use the three voting locations that were closed for the primaries and add the fairgrounds as a voting location
  • Oct 12-Oct 30
    • 7 am-7 pm
  • Approved

Office Hours for Main Office

• Proposal to cut voting hours from 8 am-5 pm during AIP (Just the main office!)
  • Reasoning:
    • HQ can’t actually close until all polling locations close
    • Even though voting is theoretically from 7-7, if there is a line, then the location has to stay open (for regular locations)
    • At HQ, they want to close at 5 pm to ensure that they can stop voting altogether at 7 pm (in anticipation of lines)
    • They want to be able to close early to deal with absentee ballot counting and admin work 
• A few objections from the board 
• HQ is increasing hiring to address increased volume of ballots
• Motion passed

Proposal to set up not at maximum capacity

• Reasoning: setting up machines takes a long time
  • Board is fine with every location making their own personal judgments

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These meetings are open to the public by Georgia law. Georgia Open Meetings Act.

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