Board of Elections & Registration - Regular Meeting

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[Music] January 16 2025 reg meeting of the can County Board of election registration is called to order all members are present please rise for the opening ceremonies please join me in a moment of silence for the victims of the New Orleans Bourbon Street terrorist attack and the California wildfires thank you don't forget about the uh victims of the uh North car in North Carolina also I pled alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you may be seated has everyone had a chance to look at the agenda yes are there any amendments or corrections to the agenda there being no amendments or Corrections the agenda chairman yes would ask that under the new business reorganization that we table that until um the um next so we can do that when we get to it if okay there being no amendments or corrections to the agenda is adopted as presented has everyone had a chance to look at the November 8th and December 6th 2024 special call board meeting minutes yes yes are there any corrections or amendments to those meeting minutes no n there being no

Corrections or um changes these minutes are approved as written WR moving on to the first public comments for agenda items only no public comments all right election supervisor update Mich shann you have the floor all right good afternoon everyone afternoon I wanted to welcome Miss Robin mayor Knight as our newest board member congratulations um I met with Robin this morning at Judge sweat's Office for are swearing in so she is official official um and she has the Oaths um have been taken care of so we are glad to have you welcome aboard oh yeah definitely aboard let's see all right I think the first thing I'm going to talk about you all should have in your binders an advanced voting uh proposed schedule oops that's not it I did put it back and there was a copy on the back table it's right here okay so staff and I always kind of sit down go over what um we believe is best for the voters uh and what we can accomplish in early voting for this particular election we have a March 18th election um and what we are proposing we obviously we have to have three weeks of advanced voting so we will do that at the annex both Saturdays as well and you can see the dat labeled therefore for your convenience wood bind we're going to do in our office as well same times as the the annex location so that way there's no confusion with the public so all three sites would be 7:30 to 5:30 weekly it's just the dates are a little different we do one week here in

Woodbine and we have been um been given some time in St Mary's at the Welcome Center as well for one week and one Saturday let's see so we'll do we have um the very first Saturday is only at the annex the second Saturday we'll have in all three locations um and 9 to 5 is the required time for early voting on Saturdays uh spast election I know the county is working on many things to promote the spast and and kind of talk about it and what it involves it's an $85 million project so they are working on details I'm still working on my ballot I I just say that because I don't know how much turnout we will have but we we um don't think it'll be as busy as November obviously so that's why we would like to propose these dates do I have any comments or feedback everybody think these are okay there was a question earlier about uh why are we having uh Advanced voting in Wood mine and St Mary's and the annex and can you talk a little bit about who's who's covering the cost of this election um so the this is a county a countywide election but we're having St Mary's and Woodbine as well as the annex because all three cities are involved in the $85 million total list now if you all would like to consider uh a billing the cities for part of this election I can check into that actually I think it's in the the memo oh yeah yeah yeah I think we yes yeah so that's we wanted to give a week in St Mary's a week in in Wood buying because they're they're paying for it yeah they're it's

their projects too so the the county and the cities have worked collaborative collaboratively along with the city of woodb I haven't mentioned them but they've been in the loop as well um and so and it affects all the all the citizens in Camden who are registered to vote okay any questions on the advanced voting dates and times good they don't have a vote on it but yeah okay awesome and we'll get those published right away okay let's see what else I had on my list okay and speaking of invoices uh invoices to the city IES went out today for the runoff election in December um and if you talk to your council members or your Commissioners I mean there's a little bit of a difference St Mary's had a lot more voters than Kingsland so the price the invoice price were kind of reflects that um but we do go back to the we wouldn't have had that election had it not been for the runoffs that were necessary for those two cities so I go back and build them for my ballot paper my Enterprise Rental Trust my time my staff my poll workers so they um have received both both cities have already sent me a message that they've received their invoices and are getting it to finance Shannon just to clarify we can give this to the public okay thank you and it'll go the schedule will go up on the website as soon as possible now that it's been we've given it to you guys okay we'll also run the newspaper yes yeah uh we are currently in the office preparing for the March 18th special election Leona already has the schedule done for me with pole workers which is fantastic three weeks of early voting at all three sites um at least for a week

she's got staff lined up for that we have training dates um set we've sent out invitations for for that um we have the poll worker scheduled for election day the text for the ballot with the actual spls question is still in the works um so I'm working on that there's it's quite lengthy it's um a lot of projects and I'm we're trying to figure out the best way to get it on the ballot so we're working on that hopefully have that soon because the sooner I have my ballot info sent to the state the sooner we can get our election project in and we can't do anything until we get our election project so like Dennis has to do logic and accuracy soon and I was going to run the ad turn the ad in tomorrow to run in next week's paper which because we have to run logic and accuracy ads 5 days before we start logic and accuracy testing so with our paper only running on a Thursday um I'm just not positive I'm going to have the project in time so we're we're figuring that out right now okay so the goal is to start logic and accuracy testing not this Tuesday but next Tuesday right yep right so the ad will have to run next Thursday if if I know I'm G to get the project I mean I would say run the ad and if the project doesn't come in we can postpone it we can you know move the logic and accuracy it's a whole lot easier to move the logic accuracy after it's already published then waiting for it for it to be published so we can actually start oh yeah I wasn't going to wait I was just making sure that I knew tomorrow where we were with our ballot

wording yeah uh I do know that on the agenda for Tuesday night's commissioner meeting is the appointment of our District 3 seat for the Board of Elections with Mr Cody Smith I'm I haven't really had a chance to interact with him so I'm not certain what um what is going to happen on Tuesday night um both Kelly and Dawn gray have applications in those are the only two people from District three that we've gotten applications for so typically Commissioners select from the C the the the person that they want on the board um but like I said I and I usually have a little conversation with that commissioner but we'll see I not sure how that's going to go on Tuesday but it is on the agenda we are hosting our Region 14 meeting on February the 5th here in Camden uh that's a group of election offices from the southeast side um of the state and we'll invite them over for speakers with dominion and KNN who else SOS the Secretary of State will come um our liais on air and will probably come and we kind of just give an update to the group um that comes to the regional meeting on so we all have a chance to talk and communicate and give each other some updates on what's been happening in our different counties J can you repeat that date one more time for yep it is February 5th you'll get invitations it's it's probably from 9:30 to 2: and we serve lunch and the only other thing I had was gabrio which I think I mentioned before

make sure your calendars are marked for August 12th I mean I'm sorry August 10th through the 13th gabrio is our organization Professional Organization that election officials in the state of Georgia belong to and we have an annual conference this year it's scheduled in Savannah from the 10th through the 13th and we normally encourage the new members of the board to go to that yeah like not mandatory but uh highly suggested and I think that's it board members anybody have any questions for me okay thank you Shannon yep uh financial report November and December 2024 month end reports I don't know if you all have had a chance to look over this yet um the December report was preliminary but I did get the updated version yesterday I think um and it was it was pretty much the same I think she might have paid one or two more bills a fuel Bill and a supply bill um but if you look at November we were at 4.68% of the budget now in December that we' paid everybody for November and December we're at 53.4 so um keep in mind I sent out bills to the city I think it was about $22,000 so we'll get that back in our budget as well and then we have the March election and we have a June election as well for the public service commissioner seat and both of those elections are in this fiscal year any questions on the budget I mean do do you think we're going to have enough money to to get to the end of the year with two two

elections yes okay without having to go back to the Board of Commissioners and and we might but it wouldn't be for much yeah okay helps out that that all four cities are pay or three cities are paying for this next election plus the county so that helps yes okay any questions from the board no all right thank you m Hannah yep moving on to new business introduction of new board of election registration member Miss Robin Knight mayor sh Shannon already took our Thunder but I mean I didn't want to start talking and we not have introduced her yet so welcome to the best board of elction registration in the state of Georgia absolutely all right to be here thank you you're welcome and then we're moving on to regularization of the 2025 2026 Board of election registration I put this on there because it is required that we look at this for the first meeting of the year and I do realize that we don't have all of the members set right now so I will take a motion to postpone until the February meeting if anyone would like to make that a motion I'm going to make the motion to postpone it till we get things settled okay second second I have a motion in a second any discussion all those in favor say I I motion carries and Kyle can I just say one thing about that yes um the I know I in our bylaws it and those are on the website the most recent bylaws talk about the process for the reorganization and then the board chairman does go over the process when you get in there um but you can always check that out on the on the bylaws to see how the reorganization goes um it talks about the nomination and how you don't need a second and from the board members and things like that so just make sure you know how that works before we go into the next time we do I'm actually required to hold training prior

to the rec organization so we'll have a little training session and we'll go right into reorganization okay any questions about that all right your favorite thing of the day trainy presented by me so I presented this training to our election supervisor earlier this year and I got a bless your heart you really tried but I'm going to send this to Dennis and is going to fix this for you so that's where we're at today Dennis fixed it all right if we can bring up the training please oh want me to do that I guess I need that's why he has the clicker here yeah wait back oh shoot hey am I doing this guys or you oh yeah it was in my packet I sent y'all in the packet yes the last last thing in the packet but everybody does have the PowerPoint in their book we could start by going through the book all um oh my goodness who copied this all right we're going to go over poll poll officers today Andra first item is the manager and assistant managers each polling location will have one Chief manager and two assistant managers that is by code manager are appointed by the election supervisor political parties involved in the election May submit a list of qualified persons to appoint to be poll managers or poll officers but this consideration is optional appointments are public records and available for public inspection he he got it up here okay excellent thank you all right next page going on to clerks okay now I can do

it yep next next yeah Shannon's got it maybe maybe if I did it the right way is it the back arrow goes forward or the is it normal and if you look on the bottom the the relevant the relevant code to each of these is on the bottom of the page all right well they're figuring that we'll go over to clerk go over clerk the election superintendent shall appoint a sufficient number of Clerks to staff each polling location and depending on the polling size that's how many clerks you'll have uh duties or voter checking at poll pad pull pad station assisting voters near the voting booth and monitoring the ballot scanner all right the pole loster station in the voting area there there should be two vote station in the polling area one to assist the voters and the other one is actually at the ballot scanner so if we have two ballot scanners there'll actually be three people back there each ballot scanner must have one person assigned to the ballot scanner and poll officer they'll also display a badge showing their name inform the voters availability sample ballots uh take precautions uh to avoid seeing the voters choices now um if they have signed up and they they have selected a poll officer to be their assistant to assist them a poll officer May assist voter in voting uh ask voters if have you reviewed your paper ballot to make sure that the they have their selection they made on the bmd match what's on their paper ballot and we definitely make every attempt to prevent a voter from leaving with their paper ballot because once they leave the enclosed area it is we cannot accept that paper ballot okay and qualifications they must be uh for poll officers they must be judicious intelligent and upright United States

citizens uh residents have otherwise employed by the cam by Camden County now we can use um adjacent County pole workers if we don't don't have enough for our of our own but that does require a an agreement between us and the and the county yeah must be 16 years of age that's why this we use the step program the student um training Ed election um program and you must be able to read write and speak English language ineligible for nomination to public office in a given election and you can not be uh related to any of the public officers that may be coming in to vote at your polling location and qualified in train to perform their duties all right before assuming the office of the poll officer appointing must be duly sworn in the presence of each other the chief manager first is sworn by the assistant manager and then the assistant manager and clerks are sworn by the chief manager nothing can happen in the polling location until the Oaths are sworn in uh May sign and take the oath and have The Oath attested by the officer who administered it all right training there's really no Set uh requirement or time for training but it says that the election superintendent shall provide adequate training to poll officers prior to each primary and election and that except for special primaries elections or runoffs held immediately following a general primary election provide each poll officer a certificate upon training completion so they must have a certificate before they can be assigned to a polling location except in a emergency and notify the secretary of state of the dates of the training and call poll officers to meetings for the purpose of training and of course they get compensated and that is a fixed compensation and it's paid by the um

election superintendent out of their budget from the County Commissioners and if you want to volunteer we will always accept volunteers but you will not get paid to be a volunteer and if you're interested in becoming a poll officer you here's the contact information all right thank you Dennis appreciate it good job yes he learned from Dr Mulla so um good job both of you she'll talk to you after point was great the presentation and I I do want to say something about that real quick for this March elction just to give you an idea um of course we have to open all 11 precincts so we I think we have 6365 um poll workers scheduled for this election to work on Election Day and then they all get an opportunity to work during early voting to kind of refresh although it hasn't been that long I can't believe I was already sending out an email saying it's time to train again um so they they all will get training because it is required by law um so we have three training sessions that'll be set up in mid-February for them um and that like the November election I think we had 90 995 people so it gives you an idea of um you know the kind of the difference it's a little bit smaller election even though it's very very important election I it's a little bit different and it's just one thing on the ballot and um so that's the that's the big difference okay anything else from the board no all right important upcoming dates Martin Luther King Jr day is Monday January 20th 2025 all all County officers will be closed uh logic and accuracy testing Begins for the special election on

Tuesday January 28 2025 we hope oh it's going to start yeah deadline to publish Advance voting notice for the March 18 special election is Monday February 10th which is act we'll have to back that up until the Thursday but that is the deadline President's Day is Monday February 17th 2025 last day to register to vote for the March 18th special election is Tuesday February 18th because Monday is a actual holiday uh next Board of election registration regular meeting will be Thursday February 20th at 4M it'll be here in the uh Chambers uh political parties the deadline to provide pole Watchers designation letter for advanced voting uh to election supervisor is Friday February 21st 202 five for your poll Watchers and evance only Begins for the special election and first day to issue absy ballot for the March 18th special election will be Monday February 24th 2025 and that is it for all these special dates Mr chairman I forgot two things I forgot to let Rock speak and he has an update so we're GNA turn it over to rock and then I have one more thing after that okay good afternoon good afternoon during the course of December we had over 1,600 voter contacts which is relatively high for one month but basically that's because state law keeps us from updating any voter files from October 7th until election is certified which also encompasses the advanced voting period so we did do that and but Jarvis is up to date as of today and that's thanks to our hardworking team led by Dennis and Leona thank you

star they keep us going now we also have connected with C County high school and the step program will pick up this semester okay at currently we have oops big feet but you know uh we currently have approximately 25 students that are eligible to participate at the permission forms were sent to Mrs Adina G today B Bice I went to school with someone named G but Aden Bice they were sent to her and we're waiting for those permission forms to return okay excellent and those students have to attend a training as well that was the next Point sorry I thought you were going on to no no no no the training dates um February 11th training will be held from 5: to 9 February 12th 1: to 5: February 13th 8:30 to 12:30 and they will all be held here in Woodbine and one date I wanted to just add was March 7th is the last day to accept abente ballot applications Mar 7th completes my thank you rock and I apologize uh and then did anyone look at today's paper this is just a question yes yes yeah did did you see the giant blast ad in there yes okay I just wanted to make sure somebody else saw it social media too okay well I haven't looked there but and I probably won't so okay thank you that just starts the one that was like the call for the election that we were required to put in there by law it could have been a little bit shorter but we wanted to make sure we got all of the information out it's required by law to

be in the paper four more times preceding election day I thought it looked good yeah okay good thank you anything else all right public comments for any items can you turn your mic on please thank you November does that mean that Woodbine is not going to have their municipal election this year it should be what what do you mean it's not on the calendar like on the single sheet or on the calendar calendar it's on the calendar I mean on your uh you post your meeting days uh and you have that your meeting days are not on the uh on the um uh SEC third Thursday but on the Tuesday the Friday immediately after the election uh and so you've got that listed for your your March and your June meetings but you did didn't have it missed uh was that an oversight or do you not anticipate having a it was both an oversight and the fact that Woodbine doesn't always have the election because they don't always have enough qualified candidates so it's we can always call a special called for that for the the three o'cl certification meeting but it it was an oversight on my part to begin with okay okay thank you very much just based on history history of Woodbine and their and their voting yeah so we'll know more about the city of Woodbine I believe it's on the calendar calendar on the website I thought it's it's on the calendar calendar but the the actual meeting the November meeting we normally would have that on the the Friday after oh and it's got the wrong day date it's not yeah ites have the Friday after the

election it has the third Thursday of the month because we do anticipate an election because that's the Public Service Commission PRI or general their primary is in June their primary is in June so whether Woodbine has any qualifiers which we won't know until like August um we we will have them we should have a Public Service Commission race probably October we'll I'll call a special yeah we can just make a change to the schedule okay any other public comments if there are no objection this meeting will adjourn since there are no objection this meeting is adjourned thank you thank you all 429