The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Monday voted 4 to 1 to table indefinitely consideration of adding five or six days of early voting at a site other than the county Administrative Building just north of Watkinsville.
The Board took that action after, during the public comment section at the beginning of the meeting, Oconee County Republican Party Chair Kathy Hurley, who said she was speaking for the party, stated her strong opposition to adding a second early voting site.
Bogart City Clerk Grace Martin had told the Board the City of Bogart “would very much appreciate” a voting location in the Bogart area “because we have had a lot of citizen reach out to us” asking for that option.
Oconee County Director of Elections and Registration Sharon Gregg recommended against opening a second site, citing problems in finding a location, staffing the site, and managing other logistical requirements.
Ken Davis, the Democratic Party nominee on the Election Board and the only Democrat on the Board, argued that those problems could be addressed and made a motion that a decision be delayed until further information could be obtained about the availability of the Bogart Library for the May 19 General Primary and Nonpartisan Elections .
The motion died for lack of a second.
Board Member Shami Jones made the motion, seconded by Member Kirk Shook, to table “establishment of a second location at this time.”
Davis cast the only negative vote.
Hanley’s Request
At the Jan. 5 meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration, Board Chair Jay Hanley asked Gregg to come back to the Board at its February meeting with options for adding a voting site in the Bogart area for the last five or even last six days of early voting in the May 19 election.
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| Davis (Left) and Shook 2 2 2026 |
Hanley said he had been approached by some citizens in the Bogart area “and also a couple candidates that are running for House 120 this year, and asked that we look at considering an advanced voting site” other than the one at the county Administrative Building.
The Northeast Precinct is the only one of the county’s four precincts that falls in House District 120. The remaining precincts are in the 121st House District.
Hanley did not identify the candidates with whom he has spoken, but he is a former chair of the Oconee County Republican Party, and Ward Black, Chad Paton, and KJ Allen Kendrick all have declared for the May Republican Primary for that seat.
Suzanna Karatassos is the sole Democrat who has announced for the seat, being vacated by incumbent Republican Houston Gaines. Gaines is running for the Republican Party nomination for Congressional District 10.
Hanley said at that January meeting that a second early voting venue–possibly in the city of Bogart–also could help increase turnout from the Oconee County Dark Corner Precinct, which is in the 121st House District.
Analysis of recent elections shows that use of early voting and overall turnout in Dark Corner, and to a lesser extent, Northeast Precinct, have been lower than in the two precincts closer to the county Administrative Office north of Watkinsville.
Dark Corner and Bogart precincts also tend to vote more Republican than the other two in the county.
Sharon Gregg, Director of Elections and Registration for Oconee County, said at that meeting that she estimated the total cost to the county of holding early voting for the last five days before the election at $11,325.
Gregg’s Report
Gregg said on Monday that Marswood Hall, 3761 Mars Hill Road, is not available for any election this year.
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| Gregg 2/2/2026 |
She said the Bogart Library, 200 South Burson Avenue in Bogart, “does look like it would be a nice location” but the two doors into the meeting room do not have locks.
“Unless we can come up with a way to lock those doors,” she said, “I see that as being an issue with the Bogart Library.” She also said it would not be available for an election for the Public Service Commission scheduled for June of 2027.
The third option Gregg explored was the Bogart Community Center, 141 East Thompson Street in Bogart.
Gregg said the county has used the Center as an election day polling location in the past before precinct consolidation.
“We did have issues with parking,” she said. “They don’t have a lot of parking at the location.”
The Bogart Community Center is available for all of the elections this year, she said, but use of it in May would be difficult because it is scheduled on the Saturday before the final week of elections and the Saturday after, creating problems setting up and taking down election equipment.
The city already has blocked out use of the Community Center to accommodate the remaining elections in 2026, she said.
Staffing Issues
The plan proposed by Hanley in January was to add five or six days of early voting at a second site in the last week of early voting.
Jennifer Stone, Assistant Director of Elections and Registration, said the county would need a minimum of eight workers to staff a second location and, so far, not enough poll workers have expressed an interest in working to staff the second site.
When Hanley asked Gregg to give a recommendation, she said “Our current location has operated effectively. We haven’t had any issues of space or access.”
“I believe that, at this time, opening an additional site would place an operational burden on our current staff,” she continued. “My recommendation to the Board is to maintain the current location and reassess if conditions change.”
Board Discussion
“Our mission statement, what we try to do here is make it as easy as we can for our voters to be able to vote,” Davis said when Gregg and Stone had finished.
“I understand the problems we have right now,” he said, “but I think it would be very advantageous to have two locations for our voting.”
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| Jones 2/2/2026 |
“I think we need to think about it and maybe come up with some solutions,” he said. “I don’t have any bright ideas at the moment, but we need to keep working on it.”
“I just would like to share some feedback I’ve gotten from citizens in my book club,” Jones, who is active in the Republican party, said. “And the majority of folks seem to think that 17 days was a lot of time to get to the Administration Building and that opening for one week would cause a lot of confusion. And that was a big concern for them. Some people don’t read their notices.”
“Things that I heard as I asked people about it was we wouldn’t necessarily--at least from the people I talked to--see an increase in turnout,” Shook said. Shook is the Republican Party nominee to the Board.
It would “just be a change in what they are doing,” he said. “Maybe instead of voting on election day they would vote early.”
“We asked the staff to go and do the research,” Tammy Gilland, secretary/treasurer of the Oconee County Republican Party, said. “And they have done the research. And they’ve come back and they have given us their recommendation.”
“I feel that they are not saying, no forever.” she added. “They are just saying maybe not right now. That due to staffing and some other issues that we see with the actual location that maybe we should hold off. And I agree with that.”
Davis said he felt the problems with the doors at the Bogart Library seem to be solvable.
“Other than that it seems like a very wonderful place,” he said. “Plenty of parking.”
“There also is the issue of voter education and voter confusion,” Gilland responded. “We are supposed to make it easier for people to vote. We don’t want to confuse anyone.”
Public Comment
Bogart City Clerk Martin was the first to speak during the Public Comment section of the meeting, and she said she “was very excited to hear that you all were entertaining the idea the advanced voting location and perhaps in our part of the county.”
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| Hurley (Left), Martin (Right, Foreground) 2/2/2026 |
She said the construction on SR 316 has made it particularly difficult for people from that area to get to the county Administrative Building for advanced voting.
“I know everybody on the Board sitting up here tonight,” Republican Party Chair Hurley said when she came to the podium, “and I've spoken with many of you about the possibility of having an additional early voting.”
“I'll tell you personally, and I think I can speak for our party as well,” she continued, “we are opposed to that at this point.”
“Voting at the Administrative Building for early voting has been so successful in the last, what I consider large, megaton of elections,” she said.
“I'm also concerned about the cost ramifications for it and the confusion we may have with voters,” she said.
“We'd have to reeducate all of our voters--where they can go and when they can go,” she said.
SPLOST on Ballot
In other action on Monday, the Board voted to put the referendum for renewal of the county’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) on the May 19 ballot.
The Board of Commissioners, at its meeting on Jan. 27, formally asked the Board of Elections and Registration to put the referendum for the 1 percent sales tax to the ballot.
In the lead up to the vote, Shook said he wanted “to make sure I know what I'm voting on. Is this a continuation, like what the Board of Education did with the current SPLOST, or is this a renewal.”
Voters approved a renewal of the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax in November after the Board of Education put that referendum on the ballot.
The county Board of Commissioners was asking the Election Board to put on the May ballot renewal of the county’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
In response to a question from Shook, Gregg said that the referendum will be on ballots for the Democratic Primary, the Republican Primary, and any nonpartisan ballot.
Video
The video below is of the entire meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration.
Public comment began at 1:27 in the video.
Discussion of early voting sites began at 5:55 in the video.
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