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Electoral board tells Franklin City Council elections remain incomplete and requests space, staff and repairs after machines were damaged
Summary
Pearlie Banks, chair of Franklin City's electoral board, told the council the local election is not yet complete and urged the council to provide workspace, IT support and to address damage to voting machines she says occurred during transport.
Pearlie Banks, chair of the electoral board, told the Franklin City Council on Nov. 10 that the city’s recent election had not yet been completed and that the board needs immediate operational help.
“We would not complete the election until probably Wednesday,” Banks said, noting provisional ballots must be uploaded by the Department of Elections before certifications can be issued. She described cramped conditions for logic-and-accuracy testing, saying the board was given three small rooms and could no longer use the former library space for testing and observer seating.
Banks said the board needs more secure space for testing and for political party chairs and local candidates to observe. She described delays in remediation and IT support, and said maintenance staff have dropped machines during transport: “They dropped our ADA machine, and they dropped the DS200,” she said, and asked that repair costs not come from the electoral board’s budget.
William Cannon, a resident and taxpayer, had urged the council to add a monthly financial update — beginning with an FY25 audit progress report — so residents can monitor possible school-budget overspending. “We as taxpayers deserve information about steps being taken to ensure that we will not have to pay for any fiscal mismanagement by way of increased taxes,” Cannon said during citizens’ time.
In response, the city’s interim leadership said staff would follow up and the council agreed to add the electoral board’s request as a discussion item at the next meeting for further review. The city manager said he could not yet say how repair bills would be handled without additional due diligence.
What happens next: Councilors directed staff to add a discussion item to the next agenda and to investigate space availability, transport procedures for voting machines and whether repair costs should be charged to the vendor, maintenance, or another account.
