Dixon asks for answers on voting issue; Wall admits she knew ‘something ...

The Barrow Journal’s publication of the first 2,000 names of city voters likely to be challenged created a political firestorm last week, with phones reportedly ringing off the hook at city, county and state elections offices.

Winder elections superintendent Sabrina Wall and other Winder leaders subsequently complained that the newspaper had given the public “misguided” information.

At Monday night’s city council meeting, councilman Bob Dixon noted the confusion over the issue and requested answers. Dixon said he “applauded” the Journal for bringing the issue to light and he strongly questioned why no one in city hall had told the council that there was a problem with this year’s purging of the voter list. He said whatever system the city’s election superintendent had used to challenge voter registrations was “broken.”

“It’s not working,” he said. “It’s gotta be changed. We can’t go through this every two years… When you get these (large) numbers, it’s time to go to another system.”

During the discussion Monday night, Dixon told Wall that having such a large number of proposed purges should have alerted officials that there was a problem.

“3,000 (names) should have sent up a red flag,” he said.

“It did,” said Wall. “I said something is wrong, we need to stop and review the process. I already had a conversation with Monica (Franklin, the county elections supervisor), and we were both agreeing that something wasn’t right.”

According to emails provided to the newspaper, the original list of about 2,900 names was sent to the county elections office Sept. 12-14.
Eight days later, Wall notified Franklin that there was a problem because names like those of former county chairman Doug Garrison and his wife were mistakenly being challenged.

Wall had the city’s receptionist review the list and from Sept. 26-27 the receptionist sent back five updates to the county elections office.
However, out of the first 1,100 names reviewed by the city, fewer than 20 names of voters with challenged registrations had been removed, meaning the rest of the list was slated to be purged.

THOMPSON RESPONDS

Winder Mayor Chip Thompson, who had a hand in the purging process early on, asked Dixon what system the city should use if not the city’s water customer database.

Dixon said the city could create a form that water customers would fill out when closing their accounts, and copies could be forwarded to the elections office.

Councilman Sonny Morris asked the mayor if such a form could be created. Thompson responded: “That is worth studying and thinking about.”

But Thompson also echoed earlier statements that the problem had been caused by the Journal, not by city mishandling.

“Well, if the list had not been publicized, then it would not have been that big of an issue,” he said.