Recounting Again in Gilmer Elections with Chief Registrar Watkins
Election 2020, News November 30, 2020
ELLIJAY, Ga. – Gilmer County is performing another recount of the recent presidential election this week after state directives sent Chief Registrar Tammy Watkins and election employees back to the counting machines.
According to Chief Registrar and Elections Coordinator Tammy Watkins, the process began at 9:00 a.m. today, Monday, November 30, 2020. However, she and a small number of employees were in office last night preparing for the recount. Different from the recent recount in the news where the state aligned the recount in Georgia with a scheduled audit, this time, the county’s Elections and Probate employees are re-running the ballots through the machine counters instead of hand counting them again.
Watkins said this means the recount will be much faster than last time, unless any issues arise. Something that has already happened today when Watkins said they had a “hiccup” in the machine process that required a call Dominion for aid in loading and beginning the count. She also said they had another issue when trying to count large numbers of ballots quickly. Now, they are counting ballots 50-at-a-time.
Even with these setbacks, Watkins said she doesn’t expect this recount to take longer than today or part of tomorrow. She noted that she was willing to stay after 5 today to get the recount done if the staff was willing, but she was hopeful that it may not even need a late night.
Watkins said that the counters had to be wiped for the recount, but the original voting machines haven’t been cleared yet. She also noted that elections keeps a copy of the elections counts and votes for two years on a back-up system before deleting them.
Watkins said they are again only recounting the presidential election during the recount and are using the full review system through the review board.
Watkins said that she doesn’t expect any issues, but if something does come up in error, they would immediately respond to the state to find out the issue, either to find an issue with their input that caused something or an actual election error.
The confidence was shared as even Republican Party Representative and local GOP Chair Richie Stone, who was present as a monitor of the recount, said that he did not expect any issues in county like Gilmer. Stone said, “I don’t expect Gilmer County to be any different. We have honest people in charge here.”
After the recent Georgia-only recount showed matching results, not many are expecting a difference to appear now. However, Watkins said she is still working diligently through the process because, as she said, “it’s possible.”
However, it’s also stressful in our county, Watkins said she is operating the recount as ordered, but she noted that the registrars and elections in Gilmer could be readying ballots today to go out for the coming runoff in early January. “It’s taking me and my staff away from doing that,” said Watkins when asked about having to do two recounts now.
Watkins noted that she is once again expecting a “higher than normal” turnout for the runoff, but maybe not as many as voted in the presidential election. Early voting for that election begins on December 14 and their are still several key offices up for vote like senate seats for David Perdue and Jon Ossoff or Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock.
This is also pushing unusual days as this early voting will be going on during Christmas and New Years. Watkins said she is expecting to have early voting closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, December 24 and 25, as well as for New Year’s Day, January 1, which is actually the final day of early voting. This means Gilmer’s final day of early voting would be the last day of the year, December 31. Watkins was quick to note that this could be subject to change based on circumstances. But as of right now, early voters could cast their vote through New Year’s Eve.
Gilmer amid statewide recount and audit of elections
Election 2020, News November 16, 2020
ELLIJAY, Ga. – Gilmer County and its Probate Court are deep amid recounting ballots today as they join in what Chief Registrar Tammy Watkins is calling both an audit and a recount for the Presidential Election of 2020.
With employees from the Probate Office, Registrars, and some other volunteers, officials are fully confident in finishing the counting by Tuesday night.
A major stress on certain county offices, this major process has drawn in employees from both the Probate Office and Registrar’s Office to undertake recounting every one of the 16,576 ballots cast in Gilmer County, according to viewers and officials present at the recount.
Begun on Friday, November 14, 2o20, the process is being undertaken in the Jury Assembly Room of the Gilmer County Courthouse. Gilmer Probate Judge Scott Chastain said they used the Jury Assembly Room to allow public access and viewing of the audit, as required by law. However, he said the room also allowed for social distancing between tables and for space so that one table would not accidentally hear someone from the next table over possibly causing some confusion.
Chastain told FYN that the process was going well on Friday, and they have been looking at the progress daily. Scheduled to count through today and ending tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17, 2020, they actually have until midnight on Wednesday to finish the count. This means that if something happens, the county does have a buffer of one extra day just in case.
Registrar Sherri Jones, left, helps alongside Gary Watkins, right, in the 2020 recount and audit of the Presidential Election on November 13, 2020.
Nearly twenty people at some times helping the process with including some floating staff that comes and goes, Chastain said that eleven core people including the elections review board are constantly working through the process.
Chastain and Watkins are both confident in the speed they have been accomplishing the task and are both fully confident in finishing in the scheduled time.
One of the major points of note in this process, those involved in recounting the ballots are only counting the presidential election. Chastain said this was a concern of his in the beginning. He worried that they would be needing to recount every vote in every race. Instead, focusing only on the presidential race is also helping in accomplishing the recount and audit with speed.
Moving forward, two very different outcomes could mean two very different futures for Georgia. Should the audit come up with different numbers than what the computers accounted for, Chastain said, “When we’re finished statewide, my hope is what the machines said is what we come up with. Because if we have different numbers than the machines, it’s not going to be a good situation statewide.”
A part of the statewide audit and recount, Gilmer County is going through 16,576 ballots through day-of, in-person-early, and absentee voting.
Chief Registrar Tammy Watkins echoed a similar thought saying that the recount could prove to be a test for the election equipment statewide. Watkins has also voiced, in previous interviews, her faith in Gilmer’s elections staff and poll workers and has been happy with the efforts that Gilmer has put forth in elections.
This specific election has seen records broken in terms of those visiting in early voting as well as absentee ballots. Yet, this phrase is beginning to lose some of its impact as Gilmer has repeatedly increased in the numbers this year in each of the election days throughout local, state, and federal offices.
Regardless of what the audit comes up with, some are still concerned that hand counts could become a common thing in future elections with parties constantly claiming instances of voter fraud and suppression as well as other things. However, nothing concrete has been reported yet.