Agenda Item 1:
Jan 5 runoff and early voting location and hours: lacking somewhere in Brookhaven so reached out to schools,
Seeing if we can use John Lewis School but TBD (wanted to use the same places as the last election but some are TBD because of holidays during this period)
Unconfirmed sites:
1. House of Hope: trying to pay House of Hope employees to use their staff as on-call people during voting times
2. Brookhaven (renovations at the rec center and they have events planned for holiday)
3. City of Atlanta Agenda item
Proposed times:
- 8-6 M-F
- Sat, Dec 19 from 9-4
- Sun, Dec 20, 12-4
- Off on 12/25-26
- 12/27 12-4
- Slated to close early on 12/24 at 3pm
- New Year’s eve looking to do 8-5. Even though it’s the last day but we want our staff to feel safe on that last day (not safe to drive that night)
When do you anticipate having this list nailed down so we can start the process of informing the public of these times/dates?
Should have list locked down by Wednesday, 12/2. want to keep the same 13 locations or somewhere in those areas, but holidays have thrown us off a little bit so waiting for those TBD locations (like Brookhaven)
How were the hours determined (during regular days, not holiday days)?
Let’s maintain similar hours on all of other days for early voting that we did prior to the November elctions and to maintain the weekends as we did prior to the November elections.
How does that compare to Nov elections?
Looking at trends, we cut some hours short (like on Sundays). We had 8-6 before, but we changed it. Some were 7-7. But we are open to amendments. We could change to 7-7 Mondays through Fridays. There was an advocate (Ms. Smith) to open as many hours as possibel (7-7 weekdays and 9-6/12-6 weeeknds), since we have the funds/capacity. [Nov electinos times: 9-6 on saturdays and 12-6 on sundays. 7-7 weekdays. ]
Motions passed:
Sites so far confirmed (outside of 3 listed above) were confirmed by Board Updated hours (to align with last Nov election, outside of holiday and holiday evets) were approved by Board [7am-7pm on weekdays for early voting / weekend hours of 9-6 saturday and 12-6 on sunday for each of the available weekends, as well as shutting down early on christmas eve and new years eve]
Concern brought up:
People working too long hours and if errors are going to occur, it’d likely be because people are working to the max. not opposed but bringing up this concern. This can be resolved with shifts, rather than the same people working 7 days a week.
Poll workers are ready to handle it even without ramping up poll worker amount. We leave it up to the location managers to decide how much poll workers work.
Approve all locked-down early voting locations (w exception of City of Atlanta, Brookhaven ,House of Hope) and give authority to Ms. Hamilton to approve the three late locations without another Board vote Agenda item 3: Jan 5 absentee voting 1.
Drop boxes: Will there be drop boxes for absentee ballots at each of the early voting sites?
We know the issues with collecting absentee ballots at early voting sites, but if we’re not accepting them at the actual site, then can we have a dropbox or a receptacle where people can drop them off? We don’t want to send people away when they show up.
The biggest issue with this is that there are strict video requirements and I don’t know if that can all be done at sites not controlled by Dekalb. We have had some issues with some of the other locations with 24-hour video.
Prior to doing that, we’d have to talk to each site and check w sec of state to see if that can even be done. We need to check on that before we motion to approve to do this.
Can we have a way to direct people to nearest dropbox if they show up at a location where they thought they could drop off?
Yes, they plan to have materials, signs, and QR scan codes there.
Did you know that the public can attend Board of Registration and Elections meetings?
These meetings are open to the public by Georgia law. Georgia Open Meetings Act.
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