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