Fulton County board approves streamlined canvassing policy, adds scanner tapes and e-post report to pre-certification packet

The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections voted unanimously to accept a revised canvassing and pre-certification policy and to add two items to the packet of documents provided for pre-certification review: scanner tapes and the Election Day "e-post" reconciliation report. The board also directed staff to request permission from the Georgia Secretary of State to post a ballot canvass summary on the county website and to provide the full, sortable voter lists and related documents to board members for Friday's pre-certification review.

The changes were presented as a bipartisan effort led by Michael Heekin, a board member who helped draft the policy, and were argued for at the meeting by board members who said the streamlined form would make pre-certification more efficient. "So all of the items that is recommended by the commission, we actually do all those things," Director Williams said, describing the department's compliance with the Election Assistance Commission checklist.

Why it matters: the canvassing policy sets the documents and procedures the board will use during the Friday pre-certification review and ahead of the board's formal certification. The additions — scanner tapes and the e-post report — are intended to give board members a machine-readable record of vote counts and a reconciled summary of voters who…