Board Of Elections To Meet To Respond To Eligibility Challenge

The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. on Monday to respond to a challenge from Patricia Daughertry, 5041 Price Mill Road, west of Bishop, to the eligibility of more than 100 Oconee County registered voters to participate in the Jan. 5 runoff election.

Daugherty, who is active in Conservative Republican Woman of Northeast Georgia and challenged Sen. Bill Cowsert in the Republican primary in 2016, submitted a list of voters that she said “appear” to have moved out of the county.

Daugherty cites “Available data from the United States Postal Service National Change of Address (NCOA) and other commercially available sources” as evidence that the Oconee County registered voters should not be eligible to vote.

County Attorney Daniel Haygood will meet with the five-member Board of Elections and Registration on Monday to determine how to respond to Daugherty’s challenge, filed via email with the county on Friday afternoon.

Early voting is underway for the Jan. 5 runoff election involving two U.S. Senate seats and one Public Service Commissioner, and, as of the end of the day on Wednesday, 9,538 Oconee County voters had cast a ballot in-person.

Another 3,417 voters had returned absentee ballot, meaning that the total number of voters who have cast a ballot to date is 12,955. The county has 31,985 registered voters, so turnout to date is 40.5 percent of those registered.

Four more days of early voting remain: Dec. 28 to 31. Voting is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. those days at the Civic Center, 2661 Hog Mountain Road, west of Butler’s Crossing.

For more on this story, please go to Oconee County Observations.