Dougherty County election case could be presented to state Election Board in June

Alan Mauldin, The Albany Herald, Ga.
·2 min read
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Mar. 25—ALBANY — A state investigation of a 2021 Albany City Commission election in which early vote totals were disseminated before the close of election day is still active, and a hearing on the case could come before election officials in the summer.

The Georgia Election Board could take up the case during its June 6 meeting, Mike Hassinger, the Georgia Secretary of State's public information officer for elections, said.

Vote totals in the Ward V race were displayed to an Albany Herald reporter on the morning of Nov. 2, 2021, outside the Shiloh Baptist Church voting precinct.

A television reporter also reported seeing tapes of early vote totals on that Election Day, and a state official was sent to Albany that day to begin an investigation. In addition to the Ward V contest, there also were elections that day for Wards II and III.

The Black Voters Matter representative who displayed early vote totals in the Ward V race on his cellphone to The Herald reporter said at the time that the results were available on the county's Board of Registration and Elections website.

Dougherty County Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson disputed that account, stating that the Board of Elections does not have a website. The BVM representative, Kenneth Florence, when contacted the Herald the next day and said that a person he did not know texted the vote totals to him.

The vote totals corresponded to the official tally released after the election by Nickerson's office, which oversees Albany city elections.

Georgia's legal code states that it is unlawful to disclose to another person or receive any results of vote tabulation of absentee ballots prior to the close of polls.

The state Election Board's next meeting is on April 11, but the Albany case is not expected to be among those heard.

"What our (Elections) Division is facing is a backlog of cases from 2020, and they're working all of those now," Hassinger said.

The Albany case probably will be among those dealt with during a June 11 meeting.

Among the issues the Election Board will examine are whether there was an attempt to affect the outcome of the election and whether the outcome of an election was impacted by the release of the information, Hassinger said

If the Election Board finds that a violation or violations occurred, it can take a number of actions, he added.

"The board can levy any number of sanctions against elections officials," Hassinger said.

"It can make a recommendation for criminal prosecution if deemed election tampering. It can recommend training.

"Anything that is a procedural violation or that deviates from our security procedures is going to be investigated to find out how that happened."

The Board of Elections has no comment on the case because it is an open investigation, Dougherty County Public Information Officer Wendy Howell said.