Whitfield County Board of Elections 05/11/23

Members present: Stephen Kelehear (chair), Carol Byers, Rob Cowan
Registrar: Shaynee McClure

1. SB 129—S. McClure went over the changes in SB 129. The most important was it required
   employers to allow time off to vote during early voting. Up to now, employers had to only let
   employees off on election day.
2. Primary for president—McClure reported the presidential primary will be March 12 with early
   voting Feb 19 to March 8, Saturday voting March 3 and 12.
3. The board had a discussion about voters on the rolls. McClure said they are checking the list of
   voters over 100 years old brought to them at the last meeting and another list brought to her
   since then.
4. These are the main points in the discussion:
   ? McClure said Mr. Epps, who gave the first list, brought another list of persons he
   believed questionable. He was in the audience and said he was concerned the staff
   might not be checking the rolls for errors, etc. He claimed to have found a significant
   number of errors in voters’ ages, addresses, names. He suggested a “random audit.”
   ? McClure said they had not found any incorrect addresses or names in the list he brought
   to them. They found errors in about 30 birthdates, some she said resulted from system
   changes. S. Kelehear noted no one voted who should not have voted. McClure
   concurred, adding a deceased person who had died out of state was found.
   ? The audience member claimed 4 of the 22 on his list were deceased, and he blamed the
   ERIC system for the oversights. He again urged a random audit. Kelehear said voters are
   flagged when inconsistencies are found or if they had not voted in a number of
   elections.
   ? Another audience member said a relative who had died kept getting precinct cards
   mailed to him, even though the letters were sent back, marked return to
   sender—deceased, three times. It did not get resolved until he came to the elections
   office. McClure said they have to have a signature from someone that a person has died
   before they can remove them from the rolls.
   ? A discussion about using middle initials instead of the middle name took place. Two
   audience members said they should not allow middle initials.
   ? McClure said she might consider auditing the oldest people. An audience member asked
   if they do that could it open the door to auditing everyone named “Gonzalez” or
   “Patel”? Kelehear acknowledged it might be considered age discrimination. R. Cowan
   said basing audits on ethnicity would be discriminatory but auditing those who are very
   old would be “OK.”

These meetings are open to the public by Georgia law.  

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