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Residents urge Charlotte County Electoral Board to post meeting notices, add drop boxes and update voting website
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Summary
During public comment, Kurtis Jones and Rebecca Daly urged greater transparency and offered detailed suggestions including posted notices for meetings, secure drop boxes at polling places, a separate site for early voting, poll-worker lists, three-day notice of ballot counting and multiple website changes.
During the public-comment period at the Jan. 6 meeting, Kurtis Jones said the county should post notices for all open meetings so the public would have the opportunity to attend, noting that "at least two of our meetings the previous year were not" posted. Jones framed meeting notice as vital for public oversight of election administration.
Rebecca Daly submitted a written list of recommendations and walked through multiple operational proposals aimed at improving transparency and voter access. Her suggestions included ensuring all Electoral Board members are included in meeting communications and phone calls, securing drop boxes at every polling place with clear written instructions, identifying a separate location for early voting (noting that campaign signs could be put there), and providing a list of poll workers at each location to be shared with Electoral Board members, both party chairs and state voter liaisons. Daly also asked for a three-day written notice of ballot counting to the Electoral Board, party chairs and voter liaisons and requested that the Electoral Board approve any consultants hired to assist the registrar.
On website changes, Daly recommended adding a Voting tab on the county website, replacing an outdated 2011 precinct map with the 2016 map, updating contact names, publishing county voter statistics, posting updates to voting laws, adding absentee/early-voting instructions, and placing a prominent, boxed “REGISTER TO VOTE ONLINE HERE” link at the top of the page. She also suggested the county consider a separate dedicated website for voting information.
Board members discussed some of these items in old business and acknowledged operational limits: the registrar explained why a specific start time for absentee-ballot processing is not always provided; Republicans had a representative present throughout some processing events while Democrats were not present for the entire process. The board deferred some follow-up actions (such as compiling an email list) pending appointment of a secretary.
The public’s recommendations touch on areas under the board’s control (meeting notice practices, sharing poll-worker lists, agenda structure and public information on the county website) and items that may require coordination with the county IT and elections administration offices (dedicated web pages, secured drop boxes, and consultant approvals).