Board reports 9,313 unofficial votes; recesses until results after MVP outage and signage complaint

At its Nov. 18 election-night meeting, the Board of Elections and Registration reported an unofficial total of 9,313 votes and voted 3–0 to recess until election results are complete, members said.

The board’s director (Speaker 2, role not specified) presented the unofficial tally and described turnout as “a slow, quiet day.” Speaker 2 reported the total as 9,313 votes, with 41 absentee-by-mail ballots on record and one absentee ballot rejected for a missing driver’s license; the rejected voter has until Friday at 5 p.m. to cure the deficiency. The director also said there were 5,490 advanced in-person votes and 3,782 election-day votes.

Why it matters: the board’s figures are unofficial and subject to certification. Board members used the session to log operational details, to note an IT outage that briefly affected state systems, and to take the procedural step of recessing while final counts were completed.

The director highlighted precinct-level details: Smyrna 4A was the busiest precinct, “just over 400” votes for the day, and Thompson Community Center had very low turnout — of roughly 51 eligible voters, Speaker 2 said four voted early and three voted on election day. On absentee processing, Speaker 2 said one ballot had been rejected for a missing driver’s license and the voter had a stated cure deadline.

Staff also addressed one campaign-signs complaint. Speaker 2 said a candidate reported signs removed at three locations; election staff confirmed only one location and said poll workers did not remove the signs, noting that the confirmed location was outside the 150-foot limit from a polling place.

The board discussed a temporary outage that affected the Secretary of State’s “MVP” site. Speaker 1 said the MVP site was down for part of the morning. Speaker 2 and others attributed the interruption to a Cloudflare incident affecting state systems; Speaker 2 said the outage intermittently affected login ability but was fixed quickly and estimated the service was truly down for a little over two hours. Speaker 3 urged consideration of backup or redundancy options after the statewide outage.

Speaker 1 also announced that, following a successful petition to the State Election Board by Miss Fisher, the board’s pre-certification meetings for the next three elections are waived and staff will not meet for a scheduled Friday afternoon pre-certification session. The board then voted to recess until results were complete; the motion to recess was made, seconded and passed 3–0, and the meeting recessed at 7:06 p.m.

The board did not take additional formal actions during the brief meeting. The totals cited in this report were described at the meeting as unofficial and subject to later certification.