Welcome everyone.

Thank you for braving the rain to be out here.

I'm calling this meeting of the DeCab County Board of Registration and Elections to order.

I'll ask for the clerk to call the roll.

Good afternoon, board members.

When I call your name, please respond by saying here.

Vasuavi Rahman.

Here.

Travis Bowden.

Here.

Gil Lee.

Here.

Dele Lohman.

Here.

Carly Swift.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Next, I'll ask for a motion to approve the agenda with one change.

So moved.

Second.

I'll announce a change.

Um the change that I'm asking for is uh for an item to be added as 5C, so under items for decision.

Added decision on ballot questions.

And so moved.

Second.

All right.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, that's unanimous.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor.

Aye.

All right.

We'll move on to public comment.

We have three in person.

Any online comments today?

Okay.

So three in person is it.

First, we have Cheryl Dudley.

Public comment may be made in person or by submitting any email of one printed page or less at a minimum of 12 fonts.

So elections public CCMT at DeCab County GA.gov, which must be received between 35 and five minutes before the schedule start of the meeting.

The body of your email must include your first and last name.

By submitting an email for public comment, you agree to have your name and email broadcast on Ustream and entered into the record in minutes.

The DeCab Board of Registration and Elections reserves the right at the board's sole discretion to add your email into the record or minutes without reading any of it into the broadcast, or read all or a portion of your email into the record or minutes.

I'll put the comment must be limited to two minutes.

Abusive pro profane or derogatory language, holding up signs, clapping, yelling, standing, laying in the aisles to show support or opposition to a speaker will not be permitted.

But a show of hands or quietly standing in place will be permitted to show your support or opposition to a speaker's position.

Now that Cheryl knows that no profane language is allowed.

Before I start.

Hi, Cheryl Dudley, resident of 50, almost 50, your resident of unincorporated DeCab.

Um, as an historian, not as much as this man, but I would recommend anyone who is interested in continuing our democracy.

No, I've not read this entire book, but it's pertinent to what I want to say today.

Um I have gone back to President Johnson when he went before Congress after Selma, which was not too long ago, the anniversary, and ask for the voting rights bill.

This is where we need to get back to.

This is not where we need to get today.

As he said, this bill would strike down all restrictions in voting that have been used to deny at that particular time it was mainly African Americans the right to vote.

Now it's a whole bunch of other people.

But just listen to a few of these.

I know I only have two minutes.

This bill will establish a simple uniform standard, which cannot be used, however, ingenious the effort to flout our constitution.

It will be provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States government if the state officials refuse to register them.

It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote.

Can you say massively taking people off the voting rolls?

Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly well registered individuals will not be prohibited from voting.

Another interesting part to those who seek to avoid action by their national government in their own communities who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections.

The answer is simple.

Open your polling places to all your people.

Allow men and women to register, whatever the color of their skin, their religion, and extend the rights of citizens to every citizen of this land.

There is no constitutional issue here.

The command of the constitution is plain.

There is no moral issue.

It is wrong, deadly wrong to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.

There is no issue of states' rights or national rights.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening.

Michael Beach.

Thanks.

I'm Michael Beach poll manager here in DeCab County.

This is actually called first comment is for Director Smith.

I wanted to make a just a couple of comments about my poll team, and I have completed some of the new training.

OMG.

I mean, come on.

This online training is really great.

It allowed me to sit there and correct things and get my paperwork caught up as we were going along.

The other folks on the team have been saying the same thing.

So again, another great improvement as we keep going.

Every election we seem to improve, which is fantastic.

Second, I wanted to thank the board for their interactions at the Capitol and through the state elections officials group, Gavriel.

We saw each other down at the Capitol to let the state legislature know how current election related bills will affect the counties.

Fortunately, SB 568 did not pass before crossover day.

For those of you who watched until about midnight, um, it did not pass.

Um, but we still got SB 214 uh now has another hearing tomorrow.

And so I think it's important that you know the latest reversion that we see here appears much improved from the last version, should limit election chaos, but there's always time until Sinee die to amend or substitute language that will degrade election transparency and lead to chaos at the polls.

I just want to implore you to please keep the pressure up at the Capitol and through Gabrio to make SB 214 a sensible, implementable database piece of legislation that will truly improve elections.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our last public commenter is Beth Ann Phillman.

Hello.

Um, I have missed the last couple of meetings, so I'm gonna go back and just thank the director and the staff for finding a solution to a early vote location between Tucker Library and Memorial.

It's huge.

It took creativity, and we really, really appreciate that.

And to the activists in the room, let's get the word out and encourage people to go to new locations.

We have got to relieve the lines, and the next step of that process is us.

Um I would respectfully ask that at every meeting there is an update on voter registration.

Um, I know it's uh it's a tough thing to certify, and we have so many elections and runoffs and special elections and special election runoffs, but I think that between now and August, almost 50% of our elections could be certification meetings.

We need to have updates on what's happening with voter registration, what's happening with the backlog at every meeting if possible.

Um I know it's a big ask.

All we do is give you big asks.

Um, and then the last thing is as we're talking about fall.

I hope we'll apply the creativity to early voting to um considering pop-up locations, especially at college campuses.

You know, Agnes Scott has a 45-minute public transportation ride to their closest early vote site.

Um, our commuter colleges, these are some of our busiest citizens.

They mostly have jobs and go to college.

Let's bring voting to them.

Fulton has done it.

We have a path to follow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that's it for public comment.

We're gonna move on to items for decision.

The first thing we have is certification of the March 10th special election.

I'll pass it to Director Smith.

Thank you.

So for your consideration and um certification, we have the results from the March 10th special election before we look at the election summary report.

I'm gonna run you through the post-election report that's prepared.

So on page six of your packets, um, you will find the beginning of the post-election report.

Um, of course, as always, our priorities are centered around enhancing the voter experience for all eligible voters in our great county.

Um, of course, as always, our priorities are centered around enhancing the voter experience for all eligible voters in our great county, and I do want to take a this moment to um thank my staff, thank our poll workers and all of our uh county partners for working alongside us again this election to ensure that we facilitated um a smooth election for our voters for this election.

We had a total of 18,047 active voters in that district, of which we had one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight ballots cast.

That was a little over nine percent, so nine point one nine percent of um for the turnout.

Okay, on election day, we had 799 uh voters on for early voting, eight hundred and forty-one absentee by mail, we processed eighteen again.

That's a total of one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight.

You will see on slide ten that New Bethel AME church was the most popular, and that of course was in the district area.

We did open Memorial Drive as well as read and uh we dan Trotty Library as early voting locations.

Um and so you'll see on the um proposal for the runoff.

We've um proposed the same three locations on slide 11 details the absentee by mail ballots.

We had 18 domestic the ballots received for this election on slide uh 12.

You will see that um we had a total of three provisional absentee ballots that were um cured and on election night and then rejected absentee ballots.

We had one cured rejected on slide 13.

You'll see the six locations that were open on election day on a map, just showing you that um that area for that district on slide 14 again election day.

We had six precincts, we had six polling locations, 43 of our dedicated poll workers served on that election day.

We had 18 poll pads, 54 touch screens, and nine scanners.

As I mentioned during the pre-certification meeting, no in-person provisional ballots were cast on election um day.

And so with that again, I just want to thank all of our uh county partners and poll workers, um, and of course the board for the support during the uh special election, and I'll answer any questions you have of the report for this um election.

Thank you.

Any questions for the director?

I have no questions at this time.

I have no questions, but just one comment.

Um I really appreciate you putting the territory with an overway of the voting areas on there.

It's very helpful.

Thank you.

I had one hopefully very quick question.

So registered voters, 18,047.

That's the number in the district.

That was the active voters.

The active interesting.

Yeah.

Kind of lower.

I'm sorry.

Kind of low, seems like it.

That area.

Yeah.

It was well, yeah, it was about 20.

Do you remember what's the number of total voters?

It was over 20,000, a little over 20,000, including the inactives, but it crosses over into Gwynette too.

Oh, yeah.

Um, no further questions for all right.

With that, I'll entertain a motion.

And to be clear, that's a motion to certify the March Stone special election.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Um motion to enter recess to sign the necessary paperwork.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor.

Hi.

All right, we're gonna go into recess.

It'll be in a different room, but we'll come back.

And we're back.

I'll entertain a motion to resume regular order.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right.

Um election certified.

We will move on to the next item for decision, early voting times and locations for the April 7th special election runoff.

Um we'll also take um a quick chair's prerogative as part of this to allow the director to talk about um our latest registration numbers.

Thank you.

I'll start with the legisl the registration numbers.

Um as of today, we have in DeCab County five hundred and sixty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-two registered uh voters, of which four hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and sixty-six are active, and seventy-five thousand six hundred and fifty-six are inactive.

I do want to just highlight the work that the registration team is doing to ensure that we complete the registrations before the May primary.

Um we actually were proactive as always in reaching out to the Secretary of State.

Um, as you know, when there is an active election, the Jarvis system is shut down for processing.

And so we reached out uh to ask if there was any way that we can continue to process registrations during this busy time, and we um they provided a workaround.

It wasn't the best that it wasn't what we had hoped for, but it did allow us to process about five thousand, I believe.

It was close to four thousand.

I know it's over four thousand, and so with that, of course, we constantly receive DDS applications, um hundreds and sometimes a thousand in one day.

And so as of today, we have ten thousand one hundred and eleven DDS applications to process.

We have one thousand one hundred and sixty-six handwritten applications, four hundred and forty-six online or Oliver applications and four hundred and fifty-six um my voter page applications are on the dashboard.

I am confident that we will be able to uh complete this task before the start of early voting in April.

And so we are on uh part to to do just that.

Okay.

Now I will move to the proposed early voting hours and um for this runoff for the House District 94 special election.

As you will see um on page nineteen of the packet and and highlighted um on the monitors, we are staff recommends the same three locations here at Memorial Drive, Read Alan Read and Trotty Library, and New Bethel, IME Church with Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m.

uh part to to do just that okay now i will move to the proposed early voting hours and um for this runoff for the house district 94 special election as you will see um on page 19 of the packet and and highlighted um on the monitors we are staff recommends the same three locations here at memorial drive read along read and trotty library and new bethel i am e church um with monday through thursday 7 a.m to 7 p.m friday is a holiday a state holiday and so voting has to end on that thursday so we're asking the board's uh approval for um this proposed this proposal all right popcorn style any questions no questions at this time um i was wondering about any weekend possibility for voting so because of the um turnout and anticipated turnout we didn't staff did not propose weekend hours um i mean we had at some on some days one or no voters come out and so just being you know good stewards of the public's dollars we felt that this time frame for this special election would suffice and provide the access that's needed but it we're it's at you know the board's pleasure as to whether or not we open um the weekend prior to March 30th and we would make adjustments accordingly if if that's the case and and you say uh you had like two or three that came in on the weekend so I said on some days throughout the three weeks of early voting um I think this location went a day with one I can go over the numbers okay um so here at Memorial Drive for the first week of early voting uh we had 19 in total come out um which gives the cost per voter at 460 dollars and so yeah you know we looked at the cost and also um considered the fact that we usually have the most voters on like the Monday and then the last day of early voting but again it's the board's decision to make hey I have a question I have a bit uh Ms.

Lee are you finished with your questions yeah I don't think I want to do a resolution on that thank you Chair Swift yes I I actually do think we need to have a weekend of voting our president has always been that we allow voters to have as much time to vote um and so having the weekend I think is reasonable we can look at the hours if we want to have at least one day but we need a week I'm a strong uh proponent of having a weekend having weekend voting especially because such a short time um and you know it we need to have the opportunity for anyone who's eligible to vote to vote uh so that's my so I would um propose that we add weekend voting at least one weekend thank you Sloan any questions no no questions I concur with that uh recommendation as well okay so I suppose I have a question then um is there any recommendation that you all have prepared so we if we want to be uh consistent with what we typically do on weekends it would be the Saturday uh nine to six I believe on Saturday and 12 to 5 on Sunday which Saturday and Sunday before it would be before you voting has to end the date the Friday if it's not a holiday before the Tuesday election day so it would be um that I'm just gonna try to find the dates the 28th and the 29th of March so March 28th the Saturday from 9 to 6 and March 29th Palm Sunday uh 12 to 5 any questions about that recommendation none at this time okay chair swift okay all right if there's no further discussion the chair will entertain a motion so moved

Uh 12 to 5.

Any questions about that recommendation?

None at this time.

Okay.

Chair Swift.

Okay.

All right.

There's no further discussion.

The chair will entertain a motion.

So moved.

Well.

All right.

Um, I can I make a friendly, again, amendment.

If the motion is to approve the date that I've been presented, then I would like to add that we uh include Saturday and Sunday voting.

So the dates for the dates would be Saturday March 28th through April 2nd with the time that the office determined for Saturday mounting.

Uh so moved.

And second Saturday and Sunday.

All right.

Uh we'll take a vote.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, that's unanimous.

All right.

We're gonna move on to 5C decisions on ballot questions.

Um, we're gonna start with the Democratic Party ballot questions.

I will pass it to our legal team for a quick explainer.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, just for everybody's knowledge, um, state law, specifically OCGA 21284, um, allows for the political parties to include um questions on the uh the the their ballots during primaries.

Um that's what we're asking you to vote on.

The CAB County Democratic Party has submitted four questions, I believe, and the DeCab County Republican Party has submitted three.

Um we'd ask you to vote to either include or exclude those questions from the ballot.

Um so if you want to start with the like as you said, the Democratic Party questions, you can do them as a slate if you would like.

Chair will entertain a motion to approve the Democratic Party primary ballot questions as a slate.

So move some move.

Second sorry, question.

Um you all have we have the quite the questions in front of the board does, yes.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions or discussion?

All right, no.

We'll take a vote.

All in favor of approving the the CAP County Dem Party 2026 primary ballot questions.

Say aye.

Aye.

Aye, aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

All right, now we have the DeCab County Republican Party questions.

They have submitted three questions.

I will pass it to our legal team again.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, as to questions one and two, um, we've reviewed those and we don't see any issues with them, but um, we do have concerns about the third question that has been submitted by the Republican Party.

Um, I can read that question specifically into the the record, which says, Did you know that the Georgia Republican Party adopted a resolution that stated in part that Brad Raffenberger does not have the faith and confidence of the Georgia Republican Party after a review of this language?

Uh it is our opinion.

Well, let me back up.

As you know, Georgia law require uh prohibits electioneering and campaigning within um within polling locations.

That specifically is located at uh OCGA 212-413D, 21 to 414A, um any type of electioneering is prohibited um within the polling locations.

I'll add to that that the enabling locate enabling legislation, which is local law 2003, Georgia law page 4200 at section 12, which created this board, the DeCab County Board of Registration and Elections includes a provision that no material distributed by this board shall contain or express in any manner or form any um commentary expression of opinion or request for support with respect to any political issue or matter of political concern in light of those provisions in the state law and in the enabling legislation.

We think the language, um it is our opinion that the language contained in question three of the Republican Party, the DeCab County Republican Party's question violates those provisions, and we would recommend that the board not include uh those questions on the ballot or that question number three on the ballot.

Any questions?

All right, the chair will entertain a verbose motion.

I move to approve questions one and two of the ballot.

Questions submitted by the DeCAP County Republican Party.

In addition, I move to reject and not include on the ballot question three and submitted by the DeCab uh County Republican Party for the following reasons.

Number one, any work wording in support of or opposition to a candidate directly on the ballot.

That communicates the voters and measures of support for or opposition to candidate on the ballot constitutes a lawful electionary in violation of OCGA section 212413D and 21 to 414 and number two any warning in support of or opposition to a candidate directly on the ballot should violate the prohibition that no material distributed by the board shall contain or express any matter or for any commentary or expression of opinion or request for support with respect to any political issue or matter of political concern contained in the DeCab County Board Organization and elections enabling legislation located at 2003 Georgia laws, page 4200 at section 12.

Is there a second second?

All right.

Any further discussion?

Um I'll make one comment before we move to a vote.

Um people know that you can't wear a t-shirt with the name of a candidate within 150 feet of the polling location.

In fact, you can't even hand out water bottles within 150 feet of the polling location.

So I just wanted to read this proposed question again very clearly so everybody sort of understands what we're dealing with here.

Did you know that the Georgia Republican Party adopted a resolution that stated in part that Brad Raffensberger does not have the faith and confidence of the Georgia Republican Party?

So that's question number three that was submitted here.

All right.

Any disfurther discussion out of that comment?

Okay.

We'll go to a vote.

All in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, that's unanimous.

All right.

We're gonna move to items for discussion.

Legislative update.

Pass it back to our legal team.

Yes, very quickly, Mr.

Chair.

Um, Mr.

Beach, I think stole my thunder on a lot of it.

Thanks.

Um, but as he indicated, um, well, just to back up a little bit.

Um, the the legislative session ends on April 2nd, so we're a good bit of the way through it.

Um March 6th, the which present is not just passed Friday, but the Friday before was crossover day, which you probably really know means that if a bill doesn't pass either the Senate or the House by that date, that the bill itself is dead.

Um but be clear that that does not mean the language in the bill is dead.

It can be added to another one.

So um that's where we're at.

Um as Mr.

Beach said, um, on um uh crossover day, SB 568, which was the hand count of ballots, um, failed.

It did not pass over.

Um, several other bills did not pass over as well.

Um SB 573, which was a bill to change um essentially change the way we elect district attorneys and make it a nonpartisan status.

That did not pass over.

Um, and this uh SR 838, which was a um uh a resolution uh about a constitutional amendment to reinforcing the requirement that voters in Georgia be American citizens and required to present some ID.

That did not pass over.

Um a couple of things did pass.

Um House Resolution 2251, which is the nonpartisan election of probate judges.

Um, that is a constitutional amendment.

Um if the Senate passes it with a two-thirds majority, it'll be placed on the November 3rd uh general election ballot.

Um so that is that was passed.

And then the other one that I just want to highlight, Mr.

Beach stole my thunder on this one too.

Um Senate Bill 214 passed.

Um that right now the language in it authorizes in-person absentee vote voting.

Um but I think Gavreo is watching this one for that.

It could be what we call an omnibus bill where some of the language from the other ones could be added to this one.

Um we're gonna be watching that one, and that's all I have.

All right, any questions?

That's what happens on a rainy day.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Um, is there any need for executive session?

There's not.

All right, we'll move on to board comments.

I'll start with Mr.

Bowden.

So thanks to everyone for coming out today.

Um, we covered a lot of ground, and um, I just want to thank the staff for all their hard work and uh the effort they put in to keep us informed of these matters.

And I'm glad to see all these smiling faces here, even though it's not so nice outside, and I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.

Thank you.

Miss Lee.

I have no comments.

Thanks.

Lohmann.

It uh starts to get redundant sometimes how much we uh say, great job after the elections, but I don't want us to ever take it for granted that our um staff keep getting better at the work that they're doing, making the experience um a great one for the voters as well as for um our volunteers who run the elections for us.

And um, so thank you very much for your uh embracing the um commitment to excellence um for the voting experience.

Thank you for our poll managers um who showed up and for everybody who continues to participate in the democratic process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Swift.

Nothing for me, thank you.

All right.

Um, I hope you feel better, Chair Swift.

Um I just want to thank everybody, everybody involved in all of this.

Um it's actually it's actually a pleasure.

It's like a nice little community here working on the nitty-gritty of elections administration.

Um, with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

All in favor.

Meeting adjourned.