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Residents urge lawmakers to consult local election experts and warn ballot-audit plans are costly
Summary
Three public commenters told the DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections that state-level pre-certification reviews and pending legislation should rely on local election officials and that current pilot audits rely on volunteers and would be costly to scale up.
Several residents used the board’s public-comment period to criticize state-level processes and urge lawmakers to rely on local election officials and practitioners.
An online comment from Elizabeth Shackelford (identified in the meeting as a DeKalb County resident) said pre-certification meetings were "bogus" and "were implemented due to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories," and argued such meetings divert staff time away from preparing for certification.
Katherine Gaunt, who identified herself in person, told the board she attended an Ethics Committee meeting on SB 189 and urged that the people who actually run elections — city managers, poll workers and voter-registration leaders — be treated as the subject-matter experts for policy decisions. "The real experts are in this building," she said, and she asked that election boards around Georgia be given voice in state deliberations.
Beth Ann Feldman echoed concerns about the legislative process and warned the board that the county’s current ballot-audit pilot "is being operated to a great degree by volunteers," a model she said is not sustainable; she urged the board to press for realistic, implementable solutions and cited likely staffing needs and costs for a rapid post-election audit.
The board concluded public comments and moved to the pre-certification report presentation; no formal action was taken in response to the comments during the meeting.
