Board of Elections - Regular Meeting

Oh, we could we could do this in record-breaking time. Be wonderful. Huh? Uh, let's call the meeting to order. Calling January 9th meeting of the McGomery County Election Board to order. We uh please stand and pledge allegiance. We'll let Scott our turn lead us in this this morning 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. Awesome. Any opening election board comments? Commissioner McKisa, do you have anything? No, I think we're good. Thank you everyone. Yep. Thank you for being here. Uh oh. Um yeah, I guess for the record, Commissioner McGesia had a a situation had to deal with this morning. So, he's not able to make it in person, but he is here on Zoom. And Commissioner Widner, unfortunately, had a conflicting meeting as well. So, she's not going to be attending. So, um do we have any public comment? None. Nope. We have a motion for approval of meeting minutes for April 17th, May 14th, and May 23rd. So move. I'll second it. Any comment? All in favor say I. I. Great. So then we have a presentation and a motion this morning for the certification of the 2025 primary election. Is uh Frank Dean in attendance this morning? Yes, sir. Uh good morning election board. I am here today to request that we certify the results from the May 20th, 2025 primary election. Under the election

code uh no later than today, we are required to certify the results. Results were posted last Tuesday and uh the five-day period has passed. No challenges have been filed as of this morning. So, if the board would like to, they were able to certify those results. Just uh quick question. How many writeins total were there? Uh about 50,000 writeins across 25,000 ballots. Wow. And how's how that compared to the last um municipal or local election primary? Yes. Uh in 2021 we uh tabulated approximately 20,000 right votes. So more than double. Yes. And the the amount of time that you processed in 21 was how long did it take? Uh it took every bit of the three weeks following the election. 12-hour days 7 days a week. And with this primary, how long did it take to process over more than double? Uh more than double. We were able to do it in approximately eight working days. uh we had to work one weekend but no 12-h hour days and certainly significantly fewer staff. Right. Well, I I just want to point all that out because you know everybody was on pins and needles and you know waiting for the right in results and I you know all the calls that I was getting I'm like just they're rolling. They're they're they're moving quickly. Yeah, we you know we have a good system. We're confident in that system. We have a great team downstairs and at our voters's warehouse and they were able to move uh quickly but accurately and efficiently through all of those. I should ask you before that started but the tally number of Mickey Mouse votes. Uh we did uh we did not tally uh votes for fictional characters. Uh but I will say that Mickey Mouse is no longer I think the most popular uh fictional character. Now it's Gritty. Oh, Gritty. Gritty. Oh, Jose. Your most common uh fictional character. All righty then. Good to know. Yes. All right. Do I have a motion to certify the

uh election results? Well, quick just to add a couple quick questions. Um Frank, how many people voted totally? Uh and 130,000. 130,000. And how many was it four years ago? About 50,000. Okay. So, it's a little down. And I guess four years ago was uh what was going on then? Yeah, that was like peak pandemic voting, right? Uh yes. Um that was the first election for post the presidential, right? Post presidential. Okay. Presidential. Close. Um anything else interesting or notable? The mail in versus inerson divi division. Uh no. Um, we had significantly more uh candidates on the ballot this cycle, which uh actually makes our job in this these types of elections easier. Uh, but we also, as I mentioned, had significantly more writins. Um, I think there's a lot of uh different levels of engagement with this election as opposed to four years ago, which is good to see. Uh, even though the ballots cast are down, uh, there was a lot more on a from candidates, I'll say. um a lot more people interested in getting involved. How many people ran? Uh I think we had about 1,500 different candidates. Okay. And how many move on? Uh approximately half. The school the uh school boards make that kind of hard to Yeah. quickly math out. Um but so the school boards decide about half of those will move on to November. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Well, even with schoolboard, it still works close to half. Yeah. Yeah. Because of the cross filing, but Yeah.

But it still only, you know, works out the half. Yeah. That move forward one way or the other. Okay. Okay. Great. Any other questions or anything comments? I think we're good. Uh, I'll make a motion to certify the May 20th, 2025 primary election as described by um, Director of Elections Frank Dean. I'll second it. All in favor say I. I. I. Could have had fun and I could have voted no. Then you would have had a heart Frank would have a heart attack on the spot. So, all right. Any closing board election uh closing election board comments? No, I think that that's fine. I think we're good. No, we're good. The only thing I I'll say is that, you know, now it's going to be a long summer going into fall, but you know, a lot of work has to be done as we prepare for for November, and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of uh who's pulling out, who didn't realize they got written in, and all this other kind of stuff. So you you're you won't have a you won't have a restful summer. I know that. Right. Yeah. So great Grady's gonna have to make a bunch of filings to with Got to check his residency. Gritty may want to move forward into November. So all right. Would I have a motion to adjurnn? Uh so moved. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Meeting adjourned. Great. Thank you.