Gerald Smith, past president of Civitan, invited board of elections chair Randy Howard to give an update to the club. In addition to being the current chair, Howard has served as the former Election Supervisor.

Howard commented on the recent runoff after the coroner’s race, where Bobby Hancock-Harris beat Darrell D. Sabbs by less than a 0.5% of the vote, allowing for a recount. The Coalition for Good Governance, an organization that is concerned with fair and open elections, filed several open records requests after the run-off. Howard stated that while the race was officially closed out, they were still responding to the freedom of information requests.

Ethan Wolfe questioned Howard as to whether the problem was with the election or the open record requests.

Howard replied; “well it’s both.”

Howard previously replied to questions concerning the run-off by stating their attorney did not want them to talk about the issue. He stated they were still withholding details. “You can’t discuss anything right now.”

When asked by the Americus Times-Recorder if there was a technician involved in the recount during the coroner’s race, Howard replied that the; “technician don’t count.” He stated the technician only ran the equipment. Howard mentioned that about every technician they had had so far had been training by Dominion. However, while they were Dominion trained, some no longer worked for the company.

Some of The Coalition for Good Governance’s freedom of information requests concerned the role of the technician in the recount and the scope of their involvement.

Howard also addressed the recent Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor election, where write-ins for other candidates were accidentally adjudicated to the only qualified candidate, Jeffrey Clements. When asked why they were adjudicated, he replied; “They [were] keyed wrong into the computer.”

Howard commented on the elections supervisor, LaSandra Patterson, who was the one who made the adjudications. “She was following instructions of the Secretary of State.” Howard did clarify his statement. “She said she might have made a mistake.”

Ethan Wolfe asked how many illegal absentee ballots the County received.

Howard commented. “When I was up there, I was able to reject a lot of them.”

Wolfe asked if there had been any local prosecutions, to which Howard replied they turned it over to the Secretary of State.