No recourse for 4 Chatham voters who cast ballots in the wrong Georgia House race
A ballot error will deny four Savannahians a vote in the Georgia House District 165 Democratic primary race.
The quartet cast ballots Monday, the first day of early voting. By the time the Chatham Board of Elections caught the error, shortly after the polls opened for early voting on Monday, those voters had already submitted their ballots and left the polling location.
Because Georgia uses ballots that do not carry identifying marks, correcting the error is impossible, according to officials with the Chatham Board of Elections and the Chatham Board of Registrars.
The four voters are assigned to Precinct 8-1 based on their places of residence and their ballots included the wrong Georgia House race, the one for District 162. Because elections officials cannot identify which of the four ballots cast in the District 162 contest are erroneous, those four votes will count in the District 162 tally.
“The races that were voted in person, I don't think there's a way to fix that,” BOE Supervisor Billy Wooten said. “And if we were to come down to there being an issue with the results, then we go to the state, and we would figure it out.”
The Georgia House race was the only incorrect content on the erroneous ballots, according to Wooten . Votes in every other contest on the ballot are legitimate.
Candidates: Who is running for the Georgia House in the 2022 election?
Absentee ballot to early voting dates: What to know about Georgia voting laws for the 2022 election
Advance voting: How to early vote in Chatham County for the May 2022 election
Secret ballot means no recourse
Wooten says once a voter casts a ballot in person, their votes go into an anonymous pool, with no voter names attached to any individual ballots cast. And once the votes are in, there's no way to remove them from the pool without violating the Georgia Constitution's secret ballot law.
Three other voters from the same precinct also received incorrect absentee ballots in the mail, but that can be remedied, BOR Chairman Colin McRae said. These three voters will receive notice of the error in the mail, have their incorrect ballot spoiled, and will be allowed to fill out a new, correct ballot.
Wooten said it’s important for voters to know what’s on their ballot.
“That's just voter education; I’m not blaming anybody,” Wooten said. “At some point in time, voters have to know who they're voting for. And that's why a voter called us, because he knew who he’s gonna vote for, and when he saw a sample, it was wrong.”
Discovering the ballot problem
The BOE was contacted by a voter Monday morning around 9 a.m., just as early voting began in Chatham. The voter had compared his or her ballot to the sample ballots available online and noticed a discrepancy.
Prior to last fall’s redistricting, Precinct 8-1 was split between two Georgia House seats, District 165 and District 162, represented by Edna Jackson and Carl Gilliard, respectively, both of whom are up for re-election this year. Jackson has no opponents in the primary, but Gilliard has a Democratic challenger in Fredrick Praylo.
Under the redrawn Georgia House districts, Jackson represents all the residents of both precincts. But for these seven voters — four early voters and three absentee ballots — Jackson’s name wasn’t on the ballot when they went to early vote on Monday. They saw Gilliard and Praylo.
On Tuesday, Wooten said the BOE had identified the issue, which stemmed from both local voting precinct changes and the newly drawn redistricting maps. Wooten said the Board of Elections was the body responsible for proofing the ballots in accord with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
"When all that information was flying back and forth, to the state, it somehow was transposed or typed in wrong," Wooten said. "We don't blame people. We just want to fix it and move on. We want the voters to get the right ballot."
Wooten said the issue has since been fixed, and that the Election Day ballots would be correct on May 24 as well.
Wooten said if any other voters notice an error on their ballot, they should immediately contact either the Board of Elections at 912-201-4375 or the Board of Registrars at 912-790-1520.
Voters can check their registration status and see and print sample ballots at the Secretary of State's website at mvp.sos.ga.gov.
Will Peebles is the enterprise reporter for Savannah Morning News. He can be reached at wpeebles@gannett.com and @willpeeblessmn on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Elections Board error causes 4 early votes to go to wrong GA House race
