Putnam Election Commission Begins Ballot Box Sealing Process

The Putnam County Election Commission began the process of checking and sealing ballot boxes Friday morning.

Election Commission Chair Phil Adams said that one Democrat election commissioner and one Republican election commissioner will attach one lock and one seal each on every box.

“So each one has a Republican lock, a Republican seal, a Democrat lock, and a Democrat seal,” Adams said. “So when it comes to the day of the election, at a glance we can see if the box has been tampered with.”

Elections Administrator Michele Honeycutt said that the process can be tedious. She said that it requires the two commissioners to read the serial number for each lock on each box to be recorded.

Honeycutt said that once election time rolls around they unseal the boxes, they will then go through and make sure the seal isn’t broken and that the serial number remains the same. She said that there is a ballot box for various types of ballots.

“We have a box that goes to the nursing home,” Honeycutt said. “We have an early voting, we have a Democrat and Republican blue ones those are by-mail votes and absentee. The emergency one we probably won’t use, though we don’t know, we’ve not been told by the state yet. But that is for, in November and August, anyone that was tested for COVID and waiting on a result or anyone that had COVID, still wanted to vote, they pulled up outside, and we put their ballot in there. ”

Honeycutt said that they have fewer boxes this year compared to last year because they expect fewer mail-in ballots. She said that they’ve already had much fewer requests for mail-in ballots right now than they did at this time last year.