Oconee County picked up only 12 new registered voters in the last month, with Monday (Feb. 12) being the final day of voter registration before the March 12 Presidential Primary.
As of Tuesday, when the Oconee County Board of Elections and Voter Registration met, the county had received only 77 absentee ballot applications for the Presidential Primary.
Watkinsville Attorney Pamela Lohr Hendrix is working with a group to organize a slate of candidates to run against all of the Oconee County Republican incumbents in the Republican Primary on May 21.
Hendrix said she has decided to run for the Board of Education, but she hasn’t decided which of the three Posts up for election in November she will seek.
Politicians have had many ways to mislead the public in the past, but the advent of AI chatbots is making political deception even more effective, communication researcher David Clementson said at a meeting with Oconee County Democrats last month.
Clementson said AI can be used to improve campaign solicitations, create better tailored campaign messages, tell implausible lies, and manipulate visuals.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 544 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 31, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 406 cases in the week ending Jan. 24, 481 cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10, and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Oconee County Schools enrolled 8,535 students in October of 2023, an increase of four students from October of 2022, according to data the system reported to the Georgia Department of Education.
Only 8,459 of those enrolled students were residents of Oconee County, however, and the enrollment of Oconee County students fell by 16 from October of last year.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 406 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 24, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 481cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10 and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Oconee County Schools Superintendent Jason Branch emphasized at the Jan. 8 meeting of the Oconee County Board of Education that the Board’s Jan. 16 retreat would be open to the public.
The Board and Branch’s staff took a number of steps before and after that announcement, however, that made it difficult--and in one case impossible–for the public to access that meeting.
