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We believe that at least 475 ballots were cast in Ambrose, but are not showing up in the tallies.
All the races are showing -0- votes for those precincts in the official reporting.
Will today’s “emergency meeting” provide answers?
We learned by a special private notice sent out after 7 pm last night (Thursday) only to select individuals that a special “emergency” board meeting will occur today (Friday) at 10 am at the Elections Office. The meeting notice implies that decisions will be made as to upcoming future activities (presumably over the weekend) to investigate and resolve election reporting discrepancies. CGG objected to this rushed “emergency meeting” in a number of emails to Board Chair Andy Thomas and the Board’s attorney, Ben Perkins, last night. They did not respond. The Board clearly purposely called the meeting too late for those of us out of town to get there in time, or for locals to get the word of the meeting. It appears to be one more in a long series of Board attempts to avoid scrutiny and accountability. [The Board did not even post the meeting notice on its website.]
We were alarmed enough by that announcement, signaling less than good faith intentions. But we were shocked to then read on Douglas Now that the board plans to rescan and recount three precincts of ballots and reclassify them. This significant planned activity, apparently to create a new official count, was certainly not disclosed in the limited distribution notice! The Board is giving the public no ability to really observe this highly unusual official ballot counting process and has not informed the candidates of this “rescanning” (tabulation) of the ballots. Candidates should all be notified and given the ability to send representatives to observe the count. Under Georgia election law, all such counting activities are to be open to the public for observation. Although Coffee’s Board is not preventing the public from being there, but they are keeping the plans secret effectively preventing the scrutiny and public oversight they very badly need.
Is this yet a THIRD scanning and tabulation of these ballots?
Late Thursday, the Board apparently began to belatedly admit that staff had, on election night, actually scanned the ballots from the three election day precincts and posted them as early voting ballots, making it appear that there were no election day votes in those locations. Based on reports from observers and hints from the Douglas Now article, it sounds as if these ballots were scanned at the precincts, and then after difficulty uploading memory cards, scanned again in the office on election night, (where they were classified as early voting ballots.) It should be noted that the nearly 4,000 Early Voting ballots had to be rescanned at the office because the memory cards would not upload into the election management system.
Just how many ballots did the staff rescan on election night going into the wee hours? And why did they have to rescan? The precinct scanners do the scanning and tabulating for in-person voters’ ballots and memory cards are uploaded into the election server within minutes on election night. These are internal control mechanisms. There are 2 memory cards. One is a backup if there is a problem with the primary card. None of the primary or back-up memory cards would upload on Tuesday night? Why would that be? It will be hard to get answers when the board is making it difficult to attend meetings.
Could it be the recent cyberattack or the January 2021 breaches?
As we reported earlier this month, the county suffered a damaging cyberattack in April and the county officials delayed in reporting it to the Secretary of State, just permitting the bad actors more time to travel inside the system. We have no idea whether these massive errors in the May election are in any way tied to the impacts of the cyberattacks. But given the circumstances, the Board should be operating in the most careful and transparent manner with every operation having redundancy and checks and balances. But they have chosen to do the opposite.
It cannot be ruled out that the illegal access to the voting system that the previous Board staff and Eric Chaney gave to unauthorized actors in 2021 to steal the software, left improper code in the system that could generate problems. Coffee citizens should be aware that in 2022 when we asked the Board to replace the entire system simultaneously as cybersecurity experts said must be done, the Board defied the experts’ advice and the federal court’s request, and replaced the equipment piecemeal, defeating the purpose of isolating any improper code in the system that could have been introduced by those who breached the system.
No one can know at this point whether silent attacks on the system may be behind all the difficulty Coffee Elections is having operating the equipment. The problems may be just human error in dealing with an overly complex system. But continued reckless decisions by the board do not inspire confidence that Coffee voters can know that their will is expressed in the election results.
Please attend the meetings and contact Coffee officials
If you can attend the meeting today, please do. Additionally, please ask the Election Board to stop the efforts to block public oversight. We urge you to demand accountability from the board members and from the County Commissioners who appoint them.
We suggest reaching the Board by contacting Christy Nipper, Election Director ( debra.nipper@coffeecounty-ga.gov ) and asking that your email be forwarded to the Board.
Given the importance of the upcoming November election, and Georgia’s place as a key swing state, it is critical that the Board begin operating in a transparent and responsible manner, requiring full compliant and accurate operations.
CCG is funding the video recordings of the monthly meetings and will post video of today's meeting. Each meeting cost $200 to record and publish. Please help us fund these efforts for local government transparency, making it possible for Coffee citizens to see what their government is doing.
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