Questions raised about Chatham County Board’s compliance with Georgia state elections law
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – New questions are being raised in the wake of confusion surrounding the Chatham County Election Board's reporting of local results in Tuesday's general election.
It began late in the evening when the Georgia Secretary of State's website showed that all precincts in Chatham County were reporting results, with as many as 87 out of 87 precincts reporting. But in fact, none of those totals included early voting or absentee ballots. The totals only reflected approximately 84,000 ballots cast in person during Tuesday's election, according to Board Chair Thomas Mahoney.
According to Senate Bill 189, which was signed into law last May, all absentee and early voting ballots must be counted by 8 p.m. on the day of a primary, runoff or general election.
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A source tells WSAV News 3 that a representative of the Chatham County Election Board contacted the Georgia Secretary of State's Office requesting permission to delay counting approximately 900 absentee ballots, well past the 8 p.m. deadline. The Secretary of State's Office told election officials those ballots needed to be counted as soon as possible in which tabulating continued into Tuesday morning.
"No deadline or law is going to keep you from counting ballots if they were legally cast before the 7 p.m. close of the polls or during the early voting period or if they were the absentee ballots that got in before 7 p.m. on Election Night," said Elections Director Billy Wooten. "There's no law that's going to keep you from counting them."
In addition, WSAV has learned at the end of early voting on Friday, Nov. 1, some vote recording machines were improperly shut down, leading to several SD cards used to record ballots becoming corrupted, further slowing the vote counting process.
The issues are raising questions not only about the Chatham County Election Board's compliance with the new law but also about their overall management of the vote count process. In an interview with News 3, Chatham County GOP Chair Brittany Brown said this issue needs to have some accountability.
"Number one. We've been doing this process for several years. We should really be able to – this should be very flawless," Brown said. "We shouldn't have the issues that we're seeing, and for them to have to rescan those, we should've had early vote drop around 8 p.m. at the latest but because of those issues with the SD cards, we did not see that early vote come in until much later. So, again, I think that the Board of Registrars definitely needs to answer for that."
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Wooten says the Board of Registrars isn't at fault.
"I don't know that we know when or how. We know that we had votes on them because we could see them, but they wouldn't download," Wotten said. "So, there was some glitch in the system. I'm not sure it was the card. It could've very easily just been the system that we use, which is the state system."
News 3 also reached out to the chair of the Chatham County Democratic Party, Adot Whitely, who chose not to address the ballot confusion. Instead, Whitely took the opportunity to pledge community partnerships and thank the candidates, saying in a text to WSAV: "We thank everyone who put their name on the ballot and congratulate the winners. We're glad to see democracy take place in Chatham County and America."
Georgia's Election Integrity Act, which was signed into law in 2021, allows the Secretary of State's Office to take over management of a county's elections should there be a finding of ineptitude by local officials.
Supporters of both new laws say they are designed in part to support efforts to increase voter confidence in Georgia elections.
According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, timely and accurate reporting of results is paramount to voter success in the state and that, "delays in results create a vacuum that leads to misinformation and disinformation."
Wooten said the results will officially be certified by next week and under the law, they can still process any overseas military ballots that are received and provisional ballots that are cured.
WSAV will continue to follow this developing story and update as new information becomes available.
