Election Commission Sets Vote Counting Hours

The Putnam County Election Commission set 11 p.m. as the cutoff time for counting votes for August’s election.

Election Commission Administrator Michele Honeycutt said elections officials across the state have expressed concerns over how long it will take to count absentee ballots on election night August 6. She told the commission at Wednesday’s meeting they are concerned about worker fatigue.

“I know some of the counties have said on a conference call that they are not keeping their workers all night long,” Honeycutt said. “That will cause errors, and they don’t want that, so they are sending them home to sleep and then coming back.”

Honeycutt said the election office has sent out between 700 and 800 absentee ballots thus far. She said the normal amount for an election like August’s is around 200. The largest number of received absentee ballots Honeycutt said she remembers was 800 for a presidential election. She said they were able to count all those ballots the same night.

Commission Chairman Phil Adams said state law allows for the Commission to finish counting votes the following day. Commissioner Linda Daniel made a successful motion to allow the Counting Board to use its own discretion on stopping at 11 p.m. and resuming on the Morning of August 7.

The Putnam County Election Commission also discussed the continued need for poll workers Wednesday.

Although the state wants each county to have twice the amount of normal workers, Putnam is between 20 and 30 percent up. Honeycutt said she believes there are enough workers to cover the August 6 election, but would like to have more. She said the difficulty with getting workers at the last minute is training.

“We did a class Monday night,” Honeycutt said. “And we’re doing classes all day Saturday. We have three or four more, and even the August 3 and August 4 we are doing classes.”

Honeycutt said the election office may receive some help from civic groups. She said a veterans group picked up applications to help sign up members.

“I do know the veteran’s association here pick up some applications,” Honeycutt said. “They were having a meeting and they were going to pass them out and try to get some of them.”

State election officials set up a website earlier this year to help recruit workers. Honeycutt said that, so far, that site has only netted Putnam County 11 workers.

Honeycutt said that almost every position was full before the recent spike in COVID numbers.

“At one point we had everyone except two special judges,” Honeycutt said. “Then we got that and people started dropping out. So, that’s what it is doing. It is back-and-forth. We get it filled and more drop out. We had two drop out this morning.”

Honeycutt said both of those workers had underlying health concerns that made them hesitant to work the August election.

The Election Commission approved a list of 30 names approved to work the August 6 election. Honeycutt said no time limit exists for workers to sign up, but the board must approve the person and they have to go through some of the required training.

Early voting for the August 6 election runs from July 17 to August 1.