I have been volunteering for elections in Bulloch County for the last 12 years, chiefly in the area of absentee ballots. I am definitely not an expert and I continue to learn at each election, but there are a couple of items that stuck out to me in this year’s general election:
- The rule to allow 15 day period to process, but not tabulate, absentee ballots needs to remain permanently
- Races without a qualified write-in candidate do not need to have an option to write in a name
15 Day Absentee Ballot Period
The State Election Board passed a rule in August that provided a 15 day period prior to the election date that allowed for absentee ballots to be opened and processed, but not tabulated. Approximately 20 hours were spent on absentee ballots by about a dozen people in Bulloch County over a three-day period prior to the election and on election night itself. Just imagine trying to do that beginning at 7 p.m. on election night.
If the process worked so well during this time of a pandemic, it should stand that it be continued as standard practice. Even if there are a lot fewer absentee ballots, the County would have the option to open early or not.
Non-Qualified Write-Ins
It is fairly easy to become a qualified write-in candidate in Georgia. File a notice of intention, run a classified ad, and then submit a notarized affidavit and a copy of that ad.
What’s not easy? Processing ballots with non-qualified candidates written in that will ultimately not count. We usually have a chuckle or two talking about the different names written in, but once you go through 434 absentee ballots on election night that have write-ins to pull out the 4 ballots that actually have a qualified candidate on them, it gets a little less funny. I don’t know the process for electronic ballots, but I did observe that the paper ballots with write-ins from electronic voting were having to be kept separate from the other ballots.
An easy remedy is to remove the option to write-in for races that do not have qualified candidates for both absentee ballots and electronic ballots. Don’t want to vote for any candidates that appear on a race? Skip it and move on.