The Columbia County Board of Elections received an update on the Grovetown municipal election, voter numbers and more.
Nancy Gay, executive director of the Columbia County Board of Elections, said early voting for the Grovetown municipal election started on Monday, Oct. 16. She said so far they have not had any issues with the poll pads. They had a small issue on Friday, but the Secretary of State’s office was able to quickly fix it.
“What happened for us on Friday, we got the original data file at one and then they put it on the poll pads and that’s when it wouldn’t let us queue a ballot for a voter within the city limits,” Gay said. “So, I sent the state an email and they [got the appropriate person in touch with the county]. What they ended up determining was that somehow between the transfer of file information, they dropped the zero on our precinct number. So, 030, 031 [became 30, 31]. It altered, so it made it not recognize to look for a ballot. But once they figured that out, they were able to fix it really quick.”
Gay added that the state is still having issues with GARViS, the state’s voter registration system. In Columbia County, the elections office became aware of eight voters that were registered in January but were currently not showing as registered. The state has been made aware of this issue and was working on finding them.
“The state said originally something happened, like they were 17 ½ years old in January and when they turned 18 in GARViS that’s when the issue happened and they disappeared,” Gay said. “The only issue with that is two of those eight that I have were born in the 60s. So, that nullifies they’re reasoning on that.”
The board was informed that Terry Norman has filed a declaration of intent to run for Columbia County Coroner. Gay also provided the voter registration numbers, which saw 95,451 active voters, 26,071 inactive voters for a total of 121,522 voters.
“We actually dropped down below 100,000 active voters because they transitioned to inactive,” Gay said.
Board member Larry Wiggins said that an inactive status means the person has not voted for two election cycles.
“It doesn’t mean that you can’t vote, in fact the most common way folks move from inactive status back to active status is they either request an absentee ballot or they actually show up at a precinct and vote,” Wiggins said. “Either act transfers from inactive back to active.”
Gay added that the letter the county attorney was drafting to send to the state regarding EagleAI was done and a copy of given to board members to review. At the beginning of the meeting, chair Ann Cushman said the board was not going to be a decision about EagleAI at that meeting.
“We’re not going to discuss that today, it’s not on our agenda, except for the letter we’ve got,” Cushman said. “That’s the only thing we’re going to address today. We won’t address anything else on that.”
However, at least three different organizations, Pro Georgia, Common Cause Georgia and All Voting is Local Action, were present at the meeting to ask the board to not use EagleAI, citing different concerns they have with the program.
The Board of Elections will meet on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. for the Grovetown municipal election. The board will meet again on Monday, Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. to certify the results of the election. Both meetings will take place at the Appling warehouse. There will not be a regular meeting on the third Tuesday in November.
Stephanie Hill is the managing editor and covers Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
