Oconee County Election Board Votes Not To Proceed With Challenge Of 45 County Voters

***Issues Call For Special Election To Change School Board***

The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Tuesday voted not to proceed with a challenge filed by Stephen Aleshire of 45 Oconee County voters “due to lack of probable cause.”

Aleshire addressed the Board during the public comment section of the meeting, which was before the Board vote, and said he was challenging the registration of the voters, not their “ability to vote.”

He said the voters on his list had moved out of the county or to other states, based on U.S. Postal Service reports, and that he had verified “in several different ways” the change of address before submitting the list to the Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration.

Sharon Gregg, Director of Elections and Registration for Oconee County, told the Board that she had reviewed each of the names and addresses submitted by Aleshire and found that one had been cancelled, some were labeled as active, and most were classified as inactive.

She said County Attorney Daniel Haygood had advised her and the Board to “go through the list maintenance process” rather than hold hearings on the challenges.

In other action on Tuesday, the Board issued a call for a special election on Nov. 5 to ask voters to change the way the Oconee County Board of Education selects it chair.

At present, voters select the chair via elections, and the Board of Education wants to take that power from the voters and let Board members pick the chair.

Speakers

Aleshire, who ran unsuccessfully in the May Republican Primary for the party nomination for Post 5 on the Board of Education, was the first of three citizens who addressed the Board on Tuesday.

Aleshire 7/9/2024

“Voter challenges are misinterpreted sometimes as being a denial of the ability to vote or voter suppression and such as that,” he said. “What I want to speak to is voter registration challenges.”

“It has nothing to do with the ability of individuals to vote,” he said. “It is simply are they registered in this specific jurisdiction to vote in this county’s elections and those pertaining to this county?”

Aleshire said he had emailed “approximately 45, I don’t know the exact number, electors who have registration and who have subsequently moved out of the county to other voting districts or other states even” to Gregg.

He said it is the responsibility of the local election board to remove these names from the voters lists.

Victoria Cruz, who ran unsuccessfully for Post 4 on the Oconee County Commissioners in the Republican Party Primary in May, followed Aleshire and said “I also am involved in these registration challenges.”

Cruz 7/9/2024

“They are challenges to invalid registrations or potentially invalid registration on the voter rolls,” she said. “Our rolls are dirty. Our job is just helping. We’re just trying to help.”

Susan Noakes, the third speaker, said “I’m here to show my support for this Election Board and for our county election administrators. This Board of Elections and the state of Georgia has pro-actively kept our voter roll maintained to make sure that only eligible voters are voting.”

“So I ask you that you continue to do your work consistently and fairly and protect the right to vote for all citizens,” she said.

Board Response

Gregg told the Board that “We received the voter challenge of about 45 voters. And we went through this challenge and marked whether the voter was active in our system, whether they were inactive, if they were inactive, what the reason was.”

Noakes 7/9/2024

She said she has sent correspondence to the voters that were listed as active.

“If they are no longer at that address,” she said, “it will come back to us as returned mail. And then we’ll go through the process of issuing a confirmation of this to the voters and if they don’t respond” they will be taken off the list.

She said County Attorney Haygood said “the process for a procedure as far as list maintenance and voter challenges go is for it to go through the list maintenance process.”

The Board voted “To not proceed with the challenge due to lack of probable cause.”

The Board had responded similarly to a challenge by Patricia Daugherty of 1,450 Oconee County voters in December of 2020 prior to the runoff election for U.S. Senate on Jan. 5 of 2021.

Board Of Education Request

In March, the Board of Education announced that it had asked the Oconee County legislative delegation to introduce legislation to call a special election to ask voters to change the way the chair of the Board is selected.

The Board of Elections and Registration on Tuesday agreed to issue the “Call for special election: Reconstitution of the Board of Education.”

Gregg read the language of the referendum, as it will appear on the ballot, to the Board:

“Shall the Act be approved which reconstitutes the Board of Education of Oconee County, provides for five members of the board to be elected at large to numbered posts for staggered terms, provides for the board to select a chairperson from among its members, and repeals that constitutional amendment related to the election of the chairman and members of the Board of Education of Oconee County which was proposed by Resolution Act No. 135 of the 1964 General Assembly and duly ratified at the 1964 election, as amended?”

Voters will be able to vote Yes or No.

The special election will be held in conjunction with the statewide general election on Nov. 5.

If the referendum is approved, the change will go into effect on Jan. 1, negating the election on Nov. 5 of Michael Ransom as Post 1 Chair of the Board.

Ransom, who currently holds Post 5 on the Board, defeated Joyce Reifsteck in the May Republican Party Primary. No Democrat qualified for that election.

Video

I obtained the list of names submitted by Aleshire via an open records request. The list contains exactly 45 names.

The video below is of the July 9 meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration, held at the Oconee County Administrative Building.

Aleshire began his comments at 1:27 in the video and is followed by Cruz and then Noakes.

The Board voted to issue the call for the special election requested by the Board of Education at 11:48 in the video.

It began its discussion of the voter residency challenge of Aleshire at 29:31 in the video.