All right.

Welcome everyone.

This meeting of the DeCab County Board of Registration and Elections will now come to order.

I'll be the acting chair because the permanent chair is dialed in virtually.

We'll ask the clerk to conduct the roll call.

Good afternoon, board members.

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

Here.

Travis Bowden.

Here.

Gail Lee.

Here.

Dele Lohman.

Carly Swift.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

We have a quorum.

We'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as distributed.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Chair, I would like to make a motion to amend the minutes.

I mean the agenda.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Now we're in discussion.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

The motion wasn't.

Oh.

The motion should include how you're gonna amend the agenda, right?

So sorry.

We can include in the amendment agenda.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um chair recognizes board member Lee for a motion.

Okay.

Um since the resolution that I submitted in advance didn't make it to the agenda.

I would like to amend it this time.

Um the agenda with the resolution.

Um titled Pledge of Allegiance to the flag for item of decision.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

We have a motion properly seconded to add um under items for decision, pledge of allegiance resolution, correct?

Correct.

All right.

Um is there any discussion?

No, the res the resolution speaks for itself.

Okay.

Do you want me to read the resolution at this time?

Or just whether we're going to avoid the amended to be on the agenda.

Well, uh the no need.

I mean, you well, I mean, I can read it.

Is that the proper procedure?

I think that's up to you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, you can explain it.

I think you can read it, you know.

Um, could you maybe explain it for quickly instead of reading the whole resolution?

Okay.

Um it's a tradition that is carried on by the various levels of government, including local government and civic organizations, and it's um it will remind the board of its duty to support and be under the authority of the government.

Okay.

So any other discussion.

I also favor uh patriotism and the support of this country through the Pledge of Allegiance, and I would uh encourage my fellow board members to consider adopting this as a practice for these meetings.

Okay, thank you.

Any further discussion.

All right, we'll move to a vote.

Um, all those in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye.

Well, it's you're voting on the motion itself and not whether we're amending the agenda.

It's the motion to amend the um to amend the all right one second.

Agenda.

Yes, so it's right now what you're voting on is a motion to amend the agenda to add that to the agenda.

And then when you get down to items for decision, it would be under under that.

You would actually have the item under there.

This is just whether to amend.

Thank you.

Yes, the question on the adoption of the amendment to add the Pledge of Allegiance resolution to the agenda.

Okay.

Um all those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Nay.

All right.

Aye.

The motion fails.

Okay.

So now the motion to adopt the amenda as distributed recurs.

Um any discussion on that.

Oh.

No.

Okay.

Call for a vote.

Um, all those in favor of adopting the agenda as distributed, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everybody.

All right.

Next, we have the approval of the minutes.

Um, we'll entertain a motion to approve um all of the minutes as distributed for the May 22nd meeting, June 18th meeting, and the June 23rd meeting.

I make a motion to approve the minutes for the May 22nd, June 18th, and June 23rd minutes is written.

Second.

All right.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Hi.

Aye.

All right.

Motion carries unanimously.

Next, we have public comment.

Public comment may be made in person or by submitting an email of one print or printed page or less than a minimum of 12 font to elections public CCMT at DeCab County TA.gov, which must be misubmitted.

I'm sorry, 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 a Ustream and entered into the record and minutes to DeCAB Board of Registration and Elections reserves the right at the board's sole discretion to add your email to the record or minutes without reading in all of it into the broadcast, or to read a portion of your comment and add to the record our minutes.

All public comments will be limited to two minutes, abusive profane or derogatory language, holding up signs, clapping, yelling, standing or laying in 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 opposition to a speaker's position.

Thank you.

Um we have five members of the public sign up for public comment.

Is there anyone who has not signed up who would like to be added?

All right.

Um Liz.

Okay, I'll sign you up.

All right, so that's six total.

Anyone else?

All right.

First up is Cheryl Dudley.

Cheryl Dudley, DeCab County resident, and very concerned citizen, very concerned individual about our upcoming elections.

This is my as Senator Magnum.

I saw one day said this is my points of privilege today.

We are 116 days, even less if you count early voting from the midterms, and we are facing the worst threats to our democracy since the post-reconstruction age.

I have uh and Jim Crow.

It is my hope that the county election board will at least come together.

I know DeCab County will to come up with a plan to make sure that we have free, fair, and safe elections.

The first thing is ice, just as I'm not sure where the camera is as I have on my notebook.

This little ice out thing that says destroy the microphone, sorry, that we do not want ice coming here and preventing our people from voting in free and fair elections or extremist groups doing that.

Believe it or not, there's still laws on the book.

They're the old 1870 KKK Acts and the Enforcement Acts that make it illegal for two or more people to gather together and and purport to have a conspiracy on people, threatening and intimidating and preventing people from voting.

And I'm almost gonna add the threatening and intimidating people for the second part of this.

Um in the past few weeks.

I again hope the counties can come up with something.

Um sorry, I do not I do not uh think it can depend on the state election board for various reasons, but we have the current administration demanding voting records, our personal information, our social security numbers, and saying that they will not give FEMA aid.

Oh, good storms, hurricanes to states that refuse that the DOJ is attempting to force 29 states to do that.

I'm already out.

Please stop if you really believe in patriotism.

Make sure we have free and fair election.

Thank you.

Next we have Janet Grant.

Good afternoon.

My name's Janet Grant, and I'm a DeCab resident and serve as an area poll manager responsible for the election day sites in the city of Decatur.

Today I'd like to thank the board and department leadership for your continued support of accessible and efficient elections in DeCab County.

As I've mentioned to you before, I especially appreciate the drive for continuous improvements with each election cycle, and credit you, department leadership and engaged poll workers for making that happen.

The citizens of DeCab should feel confident in the administration and results of our elections in this county.

Of note, the department has flexed staffing and equipment levels to meet the demands of both early voting and increasing volumes that we've experienced on election day over the last year.

My polls in particular have had the highest volumes that we've ever experienced, and yet there's been no significant wait times.

We've been appropriately staffed and equipped to deal with the number of voters.

Just yesterday already, we received our staffing allocations for November, and again, I know we'll be well prepared to manage the anticipated increasing volumes for this midterm election.

I also want to thank you for your unwavering support of accessible early voting across the county.

Today, hopefully, you'll approve the 20 proposed sites with generous uh schedules of days and times, but there are still a few areas of the county with less convenient access.

One of those, ironically, is the city of Decatur where I live.

Prior to the restrictions of Senate Bill 202, we had a very popular vote early voting site at Agnes Scott College.

I have to think that in part our increasing election day turnout in Decatur may be due to the fact that we don't have a local early voting site.

I would encourage you to continue exploration of future sites in these few gap areas in the county, the city of Decatur, South DeCab, East DeCab, Stone Mountain area, and the unincorporated area of DeCab between uh Emory and Doraville.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael Beach.

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

I wanted to highlight a couple of items that will impact poll workers if we don't do something.

Despite the recent special legislative session, the state election board continues to push the same agenda of supposed election fraud to undermine trust in elections.

Just yesterday in their virtual meeting, Member Grubbs worked to introduce or vote on multiple petitions to implement before the upcoming November 3rd election to require revised definition of vote to require basically optical images can't be used, only ballots, uh emergency ballots to be used if you don't have that stealth way of going to handmark paper ballots.

Words were requiring absolute secrecy, a new kind of term to me for voters, which we require rethinking how people who are assisting persons with disabilities will have basically a requirement to have a private conversation with those individuals could require separate rooms and how we look at voting facilities, scanner software updates, opening the SOS voting night headquarters to SEB oversight, a handwritten numbered list of voters to be created at the time and order of voting, despite us getting a printed list for every poll manager beforehand, prohibiting counties from charging costs for voter registration challenges.

These rules bring up old arguments and echo old conspiracies.

Some have already been litigated and some fly in the face of the special legislative session intent.

This is a continued stance by the majority of the SEB to act in defiance of the state legislature and to sow distrust in elections and undermine the will of Georgia's voters.

I would ask that the DeCAB delegation and staff take a strong stance opposing these changes and work to have Gabrio do the same.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Betsy Shackelford.

This office and the board must be exhausted trying to keep up with all the whipsawing attempts of the SEB and the Trump administration to hamper voting and the administration of voting.

I am hopeful that at least most of the attempts to change rules mid-stream will fail, given that it is impossible to change processes at this point in time.

This office administers clean, secure, proper elections, always professionally, to continue to do that for November.

The various entities that want to further an agenda by changing how elections are run, need to understand that the best way to continue with a clean, secure, proper election in November is to stop trying to tinker with it.

Indeed, if that is the goal.

All of these factors make early voting so important.

Thank you.

Next is Beth Ann Frillman.

Hi.

Just a few things.

First, I just want to say thank you to the department for the efficient work on clearing the voter registration backlog, especially before the voter registration freeze that we are now experiencing because of the special election.

I wonder if there is any way we can work with the Secretary of State to be able to work on voter registration outside of the four precincts that are involved in that special election.

But I understand that might not be possible.

And then I also just want to echo everyone's request that we expand early voting.

We're gonna see huge numbers in November.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Finally, we have Liz Tru.

Thanks for letting me speak.

During the November midterm in 2022, DeCamp had 16 early voting sites.

Then we had a runoff with only a few days for early voting, and it resulted in uh long lines and big crowds.

Um the midterm election back in 2018, also a midterm, offered um just six early voting sites.

Uh, two of those were here at Memorial Drive.

Um it's a lot to scale up for each site.

Uh you have to staff, equip, uh, you have to secure rental agreements, um, and do just a hundred other things and make sure that they get budgeted and paid for.

Um, so I'm especially impressed.

Um, the DeCAB has continually um increased uh the ability for voters to participate.

Nevertheless, I believe that more sites uh in population-dense areas um, such as uh near I-20 inside 285, um, near Doorville and in downtown Decatur would be of great, it would be a great service to have um voting sites uh for people in those areas.

Um, non-drivers would be especially um affected uh by increased capacity in those areas.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

And I don't believe we have any online comments.

Okay, so that closes the period for public comment.

We thank the public for their input.

Uh the next item of business is items for decision, early voting times and locations for the November 2026 general election.

Um the chair will recognize the executive director for a presentation.

Thank you.

So what you have in your packets beginning on page 10.

You'll find the proposed early voting times and locations.

There's also a map displaying the locations in the various uh areas across the county, and we're asking for your approval of the early voting locations as approved or proposed, I'm sorry, by staff, and to direct staff to continue researching possible additional locations and to authorize the executive director to add any such locations that are identified.

We ready for a motion?

Um all right.

Um entertain a motion.

Um I'd like to move for approval of the proposed early voting sites and times for the November 3rd general election and authorize the executive director to make uh additions to this list as available.

Is there a second?

Second.

I second all right, it's been moved and seconded.

Um is there any discussion?

Yes, all right, recognize Gail Lee.

Um I would like to make an amendment um to the times on Sundays and change it from 12 to 6 p.m.

voting to make it consistent with Saturday, and we discussed this in the in the past for major elections.

Is there a second?

I'll second that.

All right.

Any discussion about uh point of point of order.

I have a question.

What uh is are the is the current time 7 p.m.?

Five on Sundays, 12 to 5.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Can I ask just for a friendly amendment?

Yeah.

If Ms.

Loman was willing to accept that as a friendly amendment, yes.

Okay.

So we have um the pending motion, any discussion.

Okay, call for a vote.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Motion carries unanimously.

I would like to make one comment though.

Um the map still has living grace on there, and we no longer are using living grace.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

I'll make sure to remove that.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh next item of business is a consideration of the vendor agreement.

Okay.

Chair recognizes Director Smith.

Thank you.

And I'm actually going to call Deputy Director uh Dr.

Harris to the podium to um give an overview of the packet that you have.

What I'm asking for is authorization to execute any agreements with the media buyer um procurement is going through the process right now, uh, and I believe they uh provided an update today.

However, this will need to go before the board of commissioners because of the amount.

And so given or you know, with um BOC approval, um, I'd like to be able to execute any agreement in the form approved by the county attorney.

And Dr.

Harris can provide the overview of what you have there beginning on page 40.

Um 12.

12.

Thank you, executive director Smith, members of the board.

As you all know, the BLC allocated one million dollars for capital to investment towards public engagement, voter outreach to get the word of messing machine out that we're having an election.

Therefore, we have entertained and engaged with a consultant to provide information on strategic bill um billboard placement, also MARTA bus ads, that will be bus wraps as well as bus station um information.

Um again also OTT and CTB, which is over the top television, so commercials for your streaming um entertainment that will dedicate information to DeCAB County voters as well as radio, which we did implement for the June 16th runoff, which was uh well received and will um amplified throughout the Metro Atlanta area specifically to CAP County.

All of these benefits and investment, they come back with a full-fledged report of its reach of its timetable and of its um surveying through um different channels.

And I can entertain any questions.

Any questions board member Lee?

Doing yes, okay.

If this campaign is successful, there'll be a lot of registrations coming in very close to the election.

And it will they will be coming in about the same time as the registrations from the colleges.

And we'll have the staff to handle the influx.

Yes, we will follow all of the laws around registrations as we always do, and we have a process in place that will allow us to process all eligible applications before the mandate, the deadline.

And not just data entry, but actually vetting them.

That is the vetting is the the part of the well, that's part of the vetting is actually entering them in and letting the system do you know the rest.

But that's the process that we followed and will continue to follow.

So yes, there are steps and standard operating procedures that are in place to vet applications and entering them once they are reviewed.

There's another vetting that occurs on the back end.

So the system is what does the vetting is at the deal?

There are checks that occur on the back end, yes, as well as what the staff does on the front end.

So all of those steps will be taken.

Okay, I have I I find I think this is a very important issue, and I have concerns about it, and so I have a I've done more careful study of the material that you presented, and have questions and observations.

First of all, I would like to say that for the public if they haven't looked at the material already.

We're covering billboards, buses, radio, and uh streaming.

Okay, and the billboards are on I-20, I-285, and I-85, which are our main thoroughfares in DeCab County, and that's good.

And then we have some secondary roads.

Um what does the yellow highlighting mean on this material?

Like on page 14.

So on page 14, 15, 16, these highlights are from an administrative sort of um research that we were doing internally, they really don't have any pressing on the material as presented.

This was something that we could have actually unhighlighted before we provided to the clerk for the agenda.

Okay.

We've gotten to the black areas, the white areas, the Jewish areas, uh, the mixed areas, and and so I'm I'm pleased with that.

And um, we get to the buses.

You've you've covered all the colleges with the buses except Mercer.

Okay.

Um if that was your aim, then you might consider including Mercer.

Um page 16.

Does production does the 17-week cost include production cost?

No, ma'am.

Okay, it's extra.

All right.

Page 18.

Map is inverted.

Just wanted to let you know that, which I guess you know.

Um thank you for the call out.

Please explain on page 18 what campaign periods are.

Okay.

So the campaign periods.

We scaled it back.

Um we were hoping that we can start as early as July 15th, but the campaign periods includes the summer running into the November 3rd general re-election with a getting ready to vote.

Early voting is now in here.

Here are the dates and opportunities, and then leading up to election day.

So our billboards, um, outside of the static, but the digital billboards will be um real time, if you will, interchangeable.

So that message will um change, but then our static billboards, which be about four weeks.

So our first initial run will be October 5th is the last day to register to vote, get prepared, um, give me voters a call to action, and really really drilling home towards the eligible but unregistered pop unregistered population, getting that word out as well.

Then it will transition to October 13th through October 30th.

You have an opportunity to vote early, vote now, and then your last opportunity to vote November 3rd, and then we will have some um campaign efforts leading towards the of course inevitable runoff on December 1st.

Okay.

Um in the radio segment.

Let's see, that would be page 19.

Page 20.

I think 19.

19 and 20.

All right.

Um I believe that it is important for all segments of the community to have a fair and equal exposure to this campaign.

And um there is a heavy.

But there is uh V103 and WRDG, which is urban and then hip hop and R and B.

They have four exposures, whereas the other segments have three.

Um I would suggest that um V103 in week 810 through 116 be moved down to the runoff because they don't have representation in the runoff, and WRDG WRDGB eliminated week week one be eliminated because they've got three other exposures instead of four, everybody else has three exposures.

So the V103 and we're talking about the urban, which is V103, and the hip hop have four exposures the way this is set up.

Okay, we can definitely take that into consideration with the explanation that the date ranges are campaign specific, so the messaging changes, so that's why you see a duplication in the range, if that makes sense.

Well, everybody else has three exposures, so three or four.

Uh three, three, and v103 and um R DG, they have four.

Yes.

Was that what was available?

And those are dual stations.

So if you see their merged together, and they broadcast together.

I have a or they're they're just running simultaneously.

I can get a clear response on that.

And I believe it was my understanding also that the vendors contacted all of the sites, and that's those uh dates were available, so we can go back to them to you know, see if they can add the additional, but it's based on the radio station's availability as well.

merged together and they broadcast together I have a or they're they're just running simultaneously I can get a clear response on that and I believe it it was my understanding also that the vendors contacted all of the sites and that's those uh dates were available so we can go back to them to you know see if they can add the additional but it's based on the radio stations availability as well correct but our objective was as always is to be equitable across the county that's we in all that we do um so it wasn't something that we intentionally left you know out for this well v103 needs to be in the runoff also yeah which I was surprised to see that was missing we can definitely add that our request the consultant to add those if possible they have a question about marquee partners says it has a hundred and fifty networks which is nice broad spectrum uh does it how how does the ad run on every one of them or is that someone selecting them that is the answer that in which I can consult with the consultant and get back with you.

Okay I think that one's important um on page 22 have all Decab County zip codes been included yes yes ma'am okay and then again on 22 where you're talking about the streaming platform um audience targeting it's talking about demographic data segments what demographic segments are we looking for when you see the word demographic throughout this presentation it refers to DeCab County so all DeCab County zip codes um as a demographic so because we are in metroalanta and some of these stations are highly concentrated in the metropolitan Atlanta area we had to get all of the DeCab County um zip codes for the streaming right because you sign up you put your data your personal data information in there your zip code right and then um targeted communication or targeted commercials are sent directly to those viewers so that's what that means when we say demographic data well I saw somewhere in there the 18 and over is one of the things they're looking for correct so that that would be a demographic correct data uh point and just wondering if there's others no ma'am just eligible voters okay that one's nine board member any further questions that's that's um that's all I have all right thank you any other questions yes board member lohman thank you um I'm going to amend or append perhaps um my initial planned comments to just add that um despite our collective interest as a board and the um the department's interest um for balance politically and in other ways that's not how media markets make their decisions um and um they're responding to demand um so I think that that's what we need to take into account as we evaluate and look at um the recommendations that have been made to us by the um department um via the consultant that they selected um and in addition to the comments that were made about what's about availability um and I think that um we should not shy away from the high level of um diversity that is in this county and that what we see is representative of the diversity of DeCab County so we're not going to be able to just divide it in half because that is not equitable it's not representative of who's in this county um and so I um you know appreciative of um incisive questioning um I think that that's our responsibility as board members I think that um we need to make it very clear though that it is a reality that this is a county that has a majority non white population and that that is reflected in the media market that we're in and so any outreach or communication that we do should be reflected similarly so I don't have an issue with any of those things and I do not recommend that we make changes based on that I think that we need to take into account what was recommended to us by the consultant and what

I think that um we need to make it very clear though that it is a reality that this is a county that has a majority non-white population, and that that is reflected in the media market that we're in.

And so any outreach or communication that we do should be reflected similarly.

So I don't have an issue with any of those things, and I do not recommend that we make changes based on that.

I think that we need to take into account what was recommended to us um by the consultant and what works within our budget and our and our goals as a department.

Um I want to echo what one of the uh public speakers said that um having had a long view back to where we started, um, it's almost unbelievable to have the kind of thoughtful, proactive um and really intentional um campaign or communications and outreach campaign that we see before us, and it makes me really proud.

Um the only thing that would make it a little bit better, which is not in our control since we're in a multi-county media market, is if some of the other counties kicked in since they're gonna get some benefit from what we're spending.

They'll still get to hear V103 and they'll get to hear whatever radio station they listen to if they don't live in the CAP.

So, you know, if Fulton and some others wanted to kick in, I wouldn't be mad at that.

But um, but thank you for this and giving us the level of detail that you did.

That's all Mr.

Chair.

Um we can come come back to you wanted to check if uh board member Bowderan or Chair Swift have any questions.

Okay, done from I did have questions and a comment.

Yes, Chair Swift.

Okay, thank you so much.

Um I just want to echo the comments that board member um Snap just made.

I think that's important for us to recognize that we are in a district that is 50% black and over 70% non-white.

I think that there's no I am not in support of reducing any time that has been provided in the proposal.

I think if anything, if there's budget, we can expand it.

I think we're all in agreement that as a board, our goal is to blanket the county as a whole with as much information as we can um to allow people to to be to get information about registration and to understand when they can vote.

And that's our goal.

And so I don't think it I don't think any of us are experts in marketing, and so I think that we should be listening to the experts who provided us with um guidance, and our goal here today is to vote on um the vendor agreement, and then from there we can provide our feedback on how um where we want them to go, and they should provide us the best case uh the best strategy for doing that, taking into account that we don't control um when we can get on the air, and also that we are in a multi-county jurisdiction.

So if anything, we can be more expansive across some of these markets rather than um limiting it.

So that that's my I'm I support this vendor contract, and it and I support what they've provided us, and if anything, I think we can be more expansive in it, and if we can find any additional budget for it to expand it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I would like to respond if I could.

Um, yes, we'll recognize if we can keep it brief and then entertain a motion.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm usually very brief.

Um you disagree.

Uh the V103 and the you know the urban, the hip hop.

This is radio we're talking about.

Uh Hugh, the exposure is anywhere in the county.

And the fact that there are more of one segment uh one demographic than another, they all have equal opportunity to hear it.

Um and so the three exposures that one demographic may be uh prone to listen to uh should be the same as the three exposures that another demographic would be listening to it doesn't it's not limited by the number of people okay, okay.

Thank you.

Um Chair will entertain a motion to approve the vendor agreement as presented.

Um I move to approve sorry, I think it was inaudible.

Right, I understand Chair Swift recognized.

Oh, I just moved to move to approve.

If you can, I'm sorry if I can if you can hear me.

Okay, is there a second?

Yes.

Do we need to specify?

I think that the executive director asked in the form approved by the county attorney.

Do we need to?

Yes, what I would I would the motion should be to approve the agreement, contingent on approval by the board of commissioners and authorize the executive director to sign the contract in a form that's acceptable to the county attorney.

Okay.

Okay.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

All in favor.

All right.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

All right.

Motion carries three, two.

All right.

Um now we will move on to item 5C, special elections.

Chair recognize the executive director.

Okay, and I will um just provide the motion and then we can talk about it.

But um we have I'm asking for approval um uh from the board to approve the special elections and also for authorization to sign necessary documents uh pertaining to the elections.

Okay, so uh the cities of Pine Lake and Stonecrest have um reached out to us regarding holding special elections in November.

Um and the General Assembly has uh directed us to call a referendum on annexing an area into the city of Tucker and the city of Atlanta to cater, and then DeCAB public schools, um the school districts collectively have requested us to call an e splass, which is education special purpose, local option, sales tax referendum.

And so on page 43, you will see the call for the school boards um election, and the other cities call their own.

So what I've asked again is for authorization or uh to approve the um special elections and then authorization for the executive director to sign the necessary documents to facilitate the elections in November Chair will entertain the aforementioned motion, so moved.

Is there a second?

Second, all right.

Is there any discussion?

Oh I would like to know what precincts are involved with the city of Tucker.

Do we have that information?

Just the midvale road.

Oh, that's it.

Yes.

Okay.

All right, any further discussion.

Okay.

All in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries unanimously.

Um to items for discussion, risk management update.

Um, Chair recognize the executive director.

Thank you.

Okay, so we have a special guest with us today.

Um, the deputy uh finance director, Larry Jacobs has joined us.

Uh he's here to provide an overview of how um the workers' comp budget item is calculated, and um just clarify anything that the board has asked in the past regarding that line item.

So I'm asking Deputy Director Larry Jacobs.

And thank you, Director Smith, and thank you, uh Chair and and uh to the board members for all the wonderful work you're doing in DeCab County.

Um as Director Smith mentioned, I am the uh deputy finance director with responsibilities for workers' compensation for all county employees.

Uh for perspective, I would say that 15-20 years ago, it was not clear as to whether or not election day workers or election workers in general were considered employees.

And I would say 20 years ago, uh they may have been working without the benefit of the cover of workers' compensation.

Since then we have corrected that, and even though they are not uh regular status employees in the sense of nine to five employees for a period of time, we uh have taken uh measures to ensure that they are covered for workers' comp as long as they are under, and these are insurance terms under the behest or control of the of the county.

So if they're working under the direction of uh an election manager under Director Smith doing work for which they were hired, they would be covered for an on-the-job injury during the time that they're actively serving uh DeCap County.

Now the way that the cost is allocated to each of our 42 departments is um the same.

Um might argue that it benefits large departments and punishes smaller ones, but the approach is generally considered uh equitable.

The county budgets 10 million dollars a year for workers' compensation claims and the related expenses and those losses.

A portion of that goes to uh cover what we call indemnity, which is those missed uh compensation or the income that you would have received had you not been injured, and then the other portion, of course, goes toward uh medical treatment and pharmacy and other related expenses.

That 10 million dollars is allocated not necessarily based on losses or claims within voters and elections, it's socialized throughout the entire county.

That's both good and bad, because in effect, you're if you have a claim a year in which you have no claims, that means you're subsidizing the people and sanitation and fire and watershed.

But it's can be a good thing because uh if you have one employee that's injured on the job and you're bearing the full cost, then that could be a deal breaker.

So socializing these costs is really at the heart of what insurance is.

You spread the risk amongst the many and allow each one of us to take a small share of the risk so when a loss happens, you're not covering the entire risk or the entire cost of that risk.

So we are intentional about uh providing our budgeting department uh with all the claims data for each department.

We give them the cost each year, and uh in the fall, we will tell them what our claims costs were for the preceding uh eight or nine months of the year, and then they put that uh into their uh magical budget machine, and they allocate that cost to each department.

So I uh do agree with the way with the way that they allocate cost.

I do think it's generally fair, and it protects you as a relatively small department from uh bearing the cost of one large claim, which we did have one a couple of years ago.

We had an election worker had a slip and fall in some water in front of a water fountain, and uh uh some of our election workers tend to be uh retirees, and uh those injuries uh uh can be exacerbated if you're less mobile.

So uh I I'm proud to say that all of our workers are covered.

Thank you, Mr.

Jacobs.

Yes, thank you.

Anything to add?

No, well, I don't have any questions.

Any questions from Mr.

Jacobs?

Yes, board member lead.

How do you apportion the responsibility of the different departments based on budget or what?

Yes, and um so our budget our partners in budget, they do take that total 10 million dollar cost, and the uh underlying what they use to apportion the cost is simply head count.

And so they look at uh in our head count fluctuates during the year.

If you look at our regular status employees, it's about 6,800.

But if we count all the election workers for the entire year, that typically adds about 3,000 uh uh unique lives.

And so in effect, they're taking about 10,000 employees and spreading that uh cost over uh the various cost centers.

So they are all considered like full-time employees uh when they're doing the head count?

Yes, but only for the purpose of workers' compensation, right?

Yes, that's correct.

All right, thank you.

If anyone else has any questions, just feel free to speak up.

Uh thank you for coming in, sir.

Thank you.

Um my question is it's a pretty basic one.

Just in your experience as a you know, risk management professor professional.

Do you feel fairly confident in the uh loss history and any loss exposure that we've had in the last few years?

I mean, I've taken a look at the books.

I don't really see a lot of exposure.

I see, you know, outside of you know workers' comp expenditure here and there.

I mean, by and large, do you feel confident in the way that this is managed and that's this um methodology is being handled?

Uh I am, and for this uh class of business, and what we say class of business, there's a unique code for uh uh election workers.

And their loss history, if we go back 10 years has been relatively low.

I don't know if that's just pure luck or if uh I would like to say it was intentional.

The few claims that we've actually had were actually in this building, not at the election sites.

So um I think that's because that's this is where a concentration of workers are.

Um I'm a little bit surprised because some of the sites are older elementary schools, and sometimes the steps and so forth are not in the best repair.

Uh, but uh we've had a couple of slips, trips, and falls in some of these older facilities, facilities that we really can't police or or control.

Uh but when I look at our overall risk and our overall claims, I can say that you are certainly within uh the expected margins of um election workers.

We're not too high, we're not too low, we're probably somewhere in the middle.

Good.

Sounds like we need to knock some wood that we haven't had a lot of accidents, right?

I would agree.

Especially with these older buildings.

Thank you, sir.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

If I uh maybe recognize Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

Um, I just thank you for this.

Um would just ask, I guess a joint question.

Um, if you um are able to or assume that you all already are working together in uh ways to help reduce risk, whether that's through safety training that's incorporated into the poll worker training or or anything else so that we can continue and um not just rely on knocking on wood.

So that's it, but thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um one moment.

Um, sorry.

Uh Chair Swift, any questions?

No questions, thank you.

And no questions from me.

Thank you, Mr.

Jacobs.

Thank you very much.

All right, we'll move on to the director's report.

Director Smith.

Okay.

If you turn to your um director's report that starts on page 56, I will read the current data.

Um, in the report, we had registration numbers as of July 2nd, and so you have uh 574,153 registered voters, of which 502,682 are active, and 71,471 were inactive.

Total applications as of the second to be processed was 1,279 out of the close to 13,000 that we reported last month.

Um driver services uh totaled 1,199.

Uh 1,016 of those came in after the deadline.

35 Oliver online voter registration um applications, and 27 of those were um submitted after the registration deadline.

My voter page totaled 44, and 43 of those were submitted after the deadline.

Um as of July 2nd, we had one handwritten application left, and that was submitted after the deadline.

Manual voter registration cancellations for the year totaled 2,372.

As of today, not today, as of July 7th, um, I wanted to read the numbers just so that you can see kind of the flow of applications.

And so we had a total registered number of 574,000 zero zero seven.

So four five hundred seventy-four thousand and seven, um, of which five hundred and two thousand five hundred and ninety were active.

And seventy-one thousand four hundred and seventeen were inactive.

And I do want to just make a note that we are over the 500,000 again once we opened up this registration processing, and so that will enable us to add Memorial Drive's dropbacks back to our complement of dropbacks across the county.

Okay, and so total registration applications to process as of July 7th.

Um we actually have 2,797, and this is as of the 7th.

DDS applications totaled 2,328.

28 of 29 of those were pending issues.

Those were received before the deadline, and then 2,299 applications were received after the deadline.

Oliver applications, we had 36.

Eight of those were pending issues and that were received before the deadline, and 28 of those were received after the deadline.

Georgia voter cancellation request portal, VCR request, we had seven.

And we received 358 applications, handwritten applications from Gwyneth.

Was that from Gwyneth County?

Yes.

And so, and they all were received after the deadline.

So they'll be held until they are able to be processed.

The voter registration deadline for the upcoming July 28th special election was Monday, June 29th.

And if there is a runoff, uh the voter registration for that, the deadline for that uh runoff is July 27th.

I want to uh just mention that on June 26th, the Secretary of State conducted an ERIC cross-state mailing totaling 1,715 voters in DeCab County.

The records will be moved to inactive status post-November election in December.

Our goal remains to yes, the records will be moved to inactive status after the November election, so in December.

Okay, so our goal remains to maintain an accurate and reliable voter registration list while ensuring all actions are conducted with proper documentation and the due process that we mentioned.

Our office has received the following um pieces of returned mail, and I don't think that they're up on the screen.

Um so we have precinct cards that uh come back.

We have about 1,200 of those cards remaining to process.

The Secretary of State confirmation notices, um we we received 2,039, we have about 300 of those left to process.

DeCAB confirmation notices, we've received year-to-date 12 with four remaining to process, and then various mail letters.

We've received 1994, 1,994 year to date, and we have 367 remaining to be processed.

So from return mail, um the over 7500 pieces received year to date, we have a little less than 2,000 left to process.

Now I'm going to provide an update on our elections.

And first, I do want to just stop and think and thank our registration team for completing that backlog.

They did a wonderful job working, and um their work does not go unnoticed.

So thank you to the team for their hard work on that.

Yes.

So I mentioned the recount at our last meeting, um, but I do want to just highlight some uh important details around the recount that be conducted.

So from June 25th to June 27th, we conducted a recount of all ballots cast in the May 19th Public Service Commission District 3 Republican primary.

This required rescanning all ballots from the election.

We had 13 people who worked three days using five of the high speed tabulators.

It is relatively common to find slight differences between the original tabulation and a recount for a variety of reasons.

Um but in the this case, there was no difference between our two counts.

Um when I looked when staff shared the numbers of all of the counties, uh, we were the only large county that did not have to recertify.

And so, yes, that is our training, that is our preparation, and that is my team's work, and I'm very proud of the work that they do.

And so if you looked at the Secretary of State's uh press release, they had the numbers, and I can just read you some of the numbers here, the original versus the recount tabulation.

And so for Fulton County, they had a population of 1,098 791.

Um, and they had a difference of um four for one for four ballots, and so Gwinnette County, a population of 1,018 uh, I'm sorry, one million eighteen thousand and ninety nine voters.

I think their ballots uh was a negative six difference.

Um and so Cobb County with 700,093, 345, um, they had a difference of two.

I think I'm reading this right.

And so I'm definitely reading the CAP counties, right?

It's 774,394 with a difference of zero.

And so again, um my team, our team works hard.

Um, they are dedicated, um, they do what they need to do to facilitate excellence with elections with excellence in every effort, and I just can't thank them enough for their hard work.

I'll also mention the risk limiting audit on July on June 29th.

We conducted a risk-limiting audit of 9,689 ballots from nine batches that were cast in the Republican Senate and Democratic Lieutenant Governor Contest from the June 16th general primary runoff, and again, no differences were found between the machine tabulation of those batches and the hand count.

Following the passage of Senate Bill 3EX in the legislative special session, the number of contests audited will increase from two to nine in November, and it will not be possible to count the contests simultaneously.

Um this is going to require a much larger amount of work, and staff um is estimating at least 1,500 person hours, and so that would be 30 hours for 25 teams or 15 hours for 50 teams.

And so 50 teams will require more space than we have in Memorial Drive.

And so I just want to you know mention these, you know, factors as we think about you know many different things that we're exploring this year.

Um, it is difficult to predict how many ballots we will be asked to audit, and so we're just preparing for different scenarios in that case.

Also on June 29th, we conducted the ballot audit um of the images uh for the June 16th runoff, and so that's where the state system used the optical character recognition or OCR to read the text of every ballot image from the election and compared the vote written on it to the tabulation for that image.

When it could not read a ballot, it requested human review from our office.

And so compared to the last two image audits, there were relatively few ballots marked for review, and uh we did not we did not um we don't think the audit page provides an exact count on how many reviews it is requesting, but it seems to have been about 60, and so we completed that review using our staff in the office, and there again were no differences between the official tabulation and the image review.

I'll keep going and save the questions for the end, or if what you guys want okay.

Okay, so we know that we are in a special election for the July 28th Congressional District 13 race.

Uh early voting began Monday, July 6th at one location.

That's the county line Ellen Wood Library.

Um, if we have a runoff, it will be held on August 25th, and um four precincts will participate on election day for both.

The warehouse has completed logic and accuracy testing LA for the upcoming July 28th special election.

And early voting consisted of 16 touch screens, nine scanners, five poll pads, and so 11 touchscreens were deployed.

We tested five extra in case we have to send those out.

Eight scanners were deployed with one extra being tested, and the poll pads were two with three extra being tested.

Election day consists of 44 touch screens, um, 36 deployed and will be deployed and with eight extra tested, 12 scanners, eight to deploy, and four extras, 28 poll pads, 16 of those will be deployed, and 12 uh remain tested as extras if in case we need to send them out.

All equipment allocated for early voting has been, of course, delivered successfully and without incident, and we expect the same for election day.

Okay, moving on.

We will look at the uh budget, which is in your packet on page 57.

And so this really just again it displays or provides a snapshot of our current financial position, um, our you know, year-to-date um actuals and highlights that we're tracking as planned.

Um you'll see that the negative uh category that was in the negative during the last meeting.

I believe it was the lease, the rental of equipment.

You'll see that that is now in the back because there was a budget adjustment made to cover the cost that uh was there.

And um again, we are remaining hopeful that we'll be able to spend the funds um accordingly, according to planned.

We know that the last two quarters of this year are our uh larger um spins, and so we'll see you know deeper um dives in in the budget uh the line items in the coming months, and so reductions will be you know um highlighted at that time.

But uh right now we have available out of the 15 million um 11, 847,661 dollars and 29 cents, and this was the end of June.

Okay, and uh just want to mention uh the the work that our outreach team is doing.

Uh we have posted the events that uh we've been asked to attend.

Um just I believe last month we had attended, and I did not mention this, the Republican Party breakfast, and um we're happy to attend send members of our outreach team to attend the party meetings as um you know we have availability to share information about upcoming elections, so please feel free to reach out with invitations there.

Uh we have a robust communications um plan that we are implementing even before utilizing the vote the vendor that we are uh we've proposed to use for the marketing outreach campaign.

Um we've posted our ads in the champion.

Um we've sent mailers to our um special election um voters for the 13th district, letting them know that they do have an election, uh providing them with the times and the dates, uh social media posts have also been uh made.

We've had 349 uh reached via Twitter, and it looks like uh for the month 69 via our Facebook page.

Um and so we'll continue to utilize all mediums for increasing awareness about our upcoming elections and sharing you know when, where, and how to vote to all throughout the county.

And with that, I'll answer any questions.

We will we'll pop corn it.

I'll uh recognize board member lohman.

Thank you.

Um just wanted to as quickly as possible.

Um acknowledge uh where we are and how far we have come uh as a county, and um that we are uh performing the best in the metro area.

Um but also acknowledge that uh single digit differences um in counties of the size that we're dealing with are also pretty impressive.

So we're like the cream of the cream of the crop.

So um I'm I'm very pleased to hear that, and I hope that um those who watch and listen will um take heart in uh confidence in the work that is being done in your votes being counted uh accurately and know that the results that you get are trustworthy when you participate uh in the democratic process.

So thank you for this information, and that's it for me.

Thank you.

Board member Bowden.

I have no comments at this time.

All right, board member Lee.

The item um for advertising services has purchase orders of 11,524.

Does that include does that come from the materials that you have prepared for the July 28th meeting or election that you're sending out?

Do we have the drill down for the advertising cost the purchase orders?

Okay, I don't have that right here, but I can give you that information.

Yeah, I can provide that information to you.

One other thing is I would appreciate having a six-month uh breakdown of that very special professional services category.

I do have that, but I I can share that a print printout with you after the meeting.

That's all right, Chair Swift.

Any questions?

Right.

Um here from Chair Swift will recognize Director Smith.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to mention that Gwinnett County did send us handwritten cards, however, we were able to process those this week.

So the other cards that were received after the deadline were just from other sources, but they did so I did want to make sure that I mentioned that those cards did not come from Gwyneth.

However, they did send how many cards?

They sent 171 cards this week that they received for DeCab County before the deadline, and staff worked late um earlier this week to complete those.

Thank you.

Um we're gonna move on to legislative update.

Recognize the wonderful Michael Petty.

Um we reported last uh the last meeting about the legislation that passed out of the special session that was uh signed by the governor and otherwise there's no legislative um updates.

Fantastic.

Do we have a need for executive session?

We do not.

Okay.

Um before we move on to board comments.

Um, wanted to check in on the pre-certification meeting for the special election.

Um we're just gonna do that one and not the runoff.

Um they seem to be happening at Thursdays at 4 30 right after the election.

So this would be July 30th at 4 30.

Does that work for folks?

Does that give the uh election board?

I mean election staff time to adequate prepare for us.

It's four precincts, right?

It's a small election.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, this is a small election.

We have to make sure that DC TV has availability, so I'm going to check with the director.

Okay.

So I think we can get two options, that would be great.

Okay.

Thursday, 4 30 the 30th.

Do we want another option to be 9 a.m.

on Friday the 31st than the authority of us?

Okay.

Later than 9:30.

Okay.

9:30 would work.

Later than 10.

Okay.

10 a.m.

10 a.m.

Okay.

As a backup.

I'm mindful of the folks here, and I don't want them to get stuck and the bustling rush hour traffic you get around this area before about 10 o'clock.

Should we have some folks want to adapt?

I thank you too.

Fair.

Okay.

We have our proposed two times.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll move on to board comments.

Um we'll first recognize Chair Swift because I know she's got a time constraint.

Chair Swift, you are recognized.

Thank you.

I actually don't have any comments.

Thank you, everyone, for joining.

All right.

Um board member Bowden.

Well, first of all, I'd like to thank the staff for all their hard work as always.

Um, you know, I I did ask several questions about the risk management, and I've been a part of other boards, and I've never been a part of a board that took the time to call in a subject matter expert to answer my questions in detail.

So I'm very appreciative of that.

I don't take it lightly.

And it's my hope that those in attendance were able to learn something uh from it.

And uh, you know, as always, we'll we'll try and be good stewards of risk management as we um work towards election integrity and election security.

I will also say I I do regret that we did not have enthusiasm about adding the Pledge of Allegiance to our agenda.

Um I think that would be a good thing to do, but unfortunately we were voted down on that.

Thank you for all for coming out.

We'll see you at the next meeting.

Thank you, board member lohman.

Thank you, everybody, for coming.

Thank you, board member Lee.

Thank you.

Um, I would like to say that we are a board that is appointed with different uh political points of view, and while I don't expect that with the membership that we have now on the board that we'll get anything but a three to two vote on something.

I think personally, that those of us that are the two should be allowed to bring up topics that are not necessarily um approved, that uh we should be able to bring our resolutions forward to be heard, and that's all I want to say, other than thank you again for a great election, and I look forward to July's being really good too.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank all the members of the public who um, especially the ones who consistently come to every meeting and really stick it out.

Um it's great to see all of you.

It feels like we're one big happy family.

Um absolutely thank you to the staff, thank you to the director, thank you to our legal team.

Uh the information presented at these meetings um as board member lohman, former amazing chair lohman, um mentioned.

We've come such a long way.

There's so much information presented at these meetings.

Um, what I love to see is a continuous improvement.

And with every single meeting, the information is presented in a more transparent way, in a more efficient way, uh, with new fangled graphics.

Um, really, really appreciate that um disposition of this department um under uh director Smith's leadership um of continuous improvement and of transparency.

Um so thank you.

Thank you so much.

How about a round of applause, eh?

All right, with that, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Wait for it.