The Polk County Board of Elections held an emergency meeting to hear from Elections Director Noah Beck about how the ballot came out incorrectly as early voting began today, and how the process will work to fix the problem.
The good news: only a few people were impacted, and the fix to the ballot will be completed by Tuesday before voters head to the polls again.
During this morning’s Board of Elections meeting, Beck explained that clerical error made at the state level was not caught during Logic and Accuracy testing conducted in recent weeks while others were at the time. He noted that the error was ultimately the fault of his office and himself personally, and apologized to the Board and local citizens for the impact caused by the error.
The initial problem with the ballot where names were switched for the two uncontested Rockmart City Council seats in Ward 2 and 5 was caught by a voter this morning when they went to cast a ballot at the Rockmart precinct.
As of the meeting, the lone voter who caught the problem was thus far the only one impacted. Absentee paper ballots have been requested, but had not yet gone out to the public, Beck said.
To fix the problem, he was set to make a trip to Atlanta immediately after the Board of Elections meeting concluded and the fix submitted to the state to grab the device needed to then update the ballot for the around 600 voters in Ward 2 and 5 who are being impacted by the change.
Until then, signage was posted at both early voting precincts in Cedartown and Rockmart for voters to write in the correct candidate for the race if on their ballot, and those will be overseen by a provisional committee on Election Night to ensure they are counted and submitted.
That process will essentially require the committee – made up of 3 to 5 members depending on the situation, this one will include representatives from Council members Marty Robinson and Rick Stone should they chose to participate – and the intention of the voter will be decided by a majority vote. That vote will then be plugged into a new ballot, and the old one discarded.
Voter information is not shared with the board when those decisions are made.
The other corrections will require staff to reupload new ballots for the touchscreens and send off for new absentee ballots from printers who are going to provide a rush order and deliver them on Tuesday to the Board of Elections to send out to voters. Those who have requested absentee ballots and may be impacted will not ultimately see any issue, because the Board by law has upward of three days to send out ballots.
LISTEN: BOARD OF ELECTIONS MEETING
The digital fixes required for voting machines will begin this evening, and citizens are welcome to come inspect the process. The Board of Elections will be building the new ballots after today’s early voting closes at 5 p.m., and then begin the update process in Rockmart’s precinct on machines at 6 p.m., and follow up at Cedartown at 7:30 p.m.
Essentially, the elections officials involved in the process will have to redo logic and accuracy testing for the machines being used for early voting and the scanners.
All votes cast today in those two races – along with the SPLOST and Mayor’s Race (in the case of Rockmart – will also be counted via the provisional process explained above.
Beck said steps will be taken in the future to avoid this from happening again.
He also noted that the state should not be held entirely at fault for the initial clerical error. The department responsible for building ballots and delivering them to localities is understaffed and overworked, Beck noted.
Polk is also not the only one dealing with local election ballot issues as early voting began today. Officials briefly noted the errors on ballots in Chatham County are dealing with much larger-scale issues for their races on the coast as well.
