Oglethorpe County election officials offer insight into voting process
The Oglethorpe Echo
Editor’s Note: Teresa Jo Campbell will not oversee the voting process this month as she is a candidate for tax commissioner. Given her current role and experience, she spoke with The Echo about the election process.
The Oglethorpe County Board of Elections has a specific process for receiving, verifying and counting ballots, as well as measures to safeguard the integrity of the voting process.
The Oglethorpe Echo spoke with the probate court clerk and election assistant Teresa Jo Campbell about this process in anticipation of the primary election on May 21 and general election on Nov. 5.
There are currently 10,944 active voters in the county, according to the Board of Elections office.
Steve McCannon, election assistant, said early voting is common in Oglethorpe County. As of May 3, 303 registered voters have come in-person to vote early for the general primary.
“We have probably 80% of people in Oglethorpe County registered to vote,” he said. “And usually, we have more than half of the people that are going to vote, and are going to vote early.”
Campbell said before early voting starts, the state mandates Logic and Accuracy (LNA) testing for all voting machines. This testing essentially runs a mock election to ensure machines are operating correctly by verifying their accuracy through sample ballots.
The Board of Elections has completed LNA testing for the May 21 election.
Absentee ballots, which can be mailed in or dropped off, are securely held until Election Day. Before absentee ballots are counted, a board of peers examine each ballot to ensure it is sealed, correct and untampered with.
Once absentee ballots are reviewed, they are manually scanned on election night.
The computer system will flag any ballots with ambiguous marks. These uncertain ballots are then reviewed in front of a panel to confirm what the ballot reads.
If the panel is unable to determine the vote cast, it cannot be used in the final election count.
According to the elections and registration page, as of May 3, there have been 224 absentee ballots issued. Eight of these absentee ballots have already been returned.
Once voters cast their ballots, their selections are copied to two memory cards and saved on a hard drive inside the machine.
The memory cards from each scanner are uploaded to the Results Tallying and Reporting (RTR) system, ensuring accurate and timely reporting of results to the state.
Reports are then submitted to the state and uploaded to an election night reporting website for the public to view live results.
The elections office begins processing and tabulating absentee ballots at 5:30 p.m. on the day of the election until completion. The processing of these ballots will take place at the office.
While challenges are rare, Campbell said occasional issues with the ballot marking devices can occur, so the LNA serves as a proactive measure to address issues before Election Day.
Any discrepancies are addressed through post-election audits required by the state, where physical ballots are meticulously compared to electronic counts.
Campbell emphasized that transparency and oversight are embedded in the electoral process, with multiple operations in place to secure voters ballots and ensure fairness in the process.
Before elections, machines are in a locked room to prevent public access. Security measures are enforced to restrict access to voting systems through multiple passwords to ensure only authorized election staff can access the voting devices.
These passwords also allow election staff to safely upload election information on the ballot marking devices, which are the computer tablets voters use to cast their vote.
“In Oglethorpe County, our numbers are not messed with or skewed from the machines because we’ve verified ballots by hand during the state audits, so I take comfort in our process,” Campbell said.
Early Voting
Advance voting for the general primary will continue through Friday, May 17. Voting is being held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday at the elections office, with Saturday voting scheduled from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 11. Registered voters must bring a valid photo ID to vote.