In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, Georgia officials are delaying the state primary for a second time.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday that the primary will be postponed another three weeks, until June 9 now after first being delayed from March 24 to May 19.
The delays have led to many questions from confused voters for Whitfield County Chief Registrar Mary Hammontree and her office, she said Tuesday during an appearance on County Connect, a twice-weekly teleconference call shown on the Whitfield County website (www.whitfieldcountyga.com) that aims to share the latest information about the COVID-19 pandemic with local residents.
“I’m hoping to clear up a few questions for voters because we’ve been bombarded in our office today with questions,” Ms. Hammontree said.
For example, if you already cast your ballot in the Presidential Preference Primary during the two weeks of early voting and are now requesting an absentee ballot for the June election, your new ballot will not include the Presidential Preference Primary again, she said.
“However, if you didn’t early vote, you will receive a combined ballot with the Presidential Preference Primary and the May ballot on it,” Ms. Hammontree said, including the local races and the proposed four-year, $66 million Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum.
All 52,000 active registered voters in Whitfield County should have received a request for an absentee ballot from the Secretary of State’s office. If you’re one of the 2,500 Whitfield County voters who have already sent in their request for the May 19 election, you don’t have to send in another one now that the election has been delayed until June 9.
“We do not know when early voting will begin for the June 9 election,” Ms. Hammontree said, “but I do know the runoff election has been set for Aug. 11. Once we find out when early voting starts, we’ll post it on the county website.”
She’s also had lots of questions from people who think that they are required to vote by mail this time. “You DO NOT have to vote by mail,” Hammontree said. “This is just an option given to protect voters, poll workers, and all of us during this outbreak of COVID-19.”
If you request an absentee ballot and then decide you want to vote on the actual election day in June, Hammontree says you can still do that but you’ll have to bring that ballot with you and turn it in to poll workers and sign a document so the absentee ballot can be canceled in the system.
Ms. Hammontree also said June 9 voters should expect to see social distancing and limits on the number of people admitted into the polling places, as well as poll workers wearing gloves, masks, and other protective gear. “It’ll be a slow go, so please be patient with my poll workers,” she said. “We’re trying to keep us all safe in the midst of all this.”
She also reminded voters that if they request a Democratic Presidential Preference Primary ballot, they will only be allowed to vote for Democratic local candidates, and not in the four contested Republican local races. Normally, that’s not the case because the PPP is a separate election from the primary, but due to the expense of having two elections, the elections are being combined.
If you’ve already early voted in the Democratic PPP and now would like to vote for local Republicans in the June primary, you must call her office and request a Republican ballot.
Ms. Hammontree also pointed out that though the Democratic field has now been narrowed only to Joe Biden, all the other candidates will still be on the Democratic PPP ballot because they have not been officially eliminated by the Secretary of State’s office.
Voters can also pick up absentee ballot requests and voter registration applications from a table outside her office in the courthouse, she said.
The cut-off date for voter registration has not been decided but will be posted on the county website once it is, Ms. Hammontree said.
Also during today’s teleconference, Commission Chairman Lynn Laughter reminded the public that the Army National Guard is supporting the COVID-19 response effort in Whitfield County.
“They’ve deployed more than 30 infection control teams called ICTs to long-term-care facilities throughout the state, and right now, our long-term-care facilities and nursing homes do not have a single case,” Ms. Laughter said. “So in that regard, the Guard is just here to assess what we might need should we start having a problem here. Our hospital closed assisted living and nursing home facilities very early to people coming in, so I’m very thankful we right now don’t have a single case in these facilities.”
The Guard also sent 17 medical supply teams for hospitals throughout the state, but “again, our hospital is in pretty good shape,” Ms. Laughter said. “We’ve got plenty of capacity so they’ll just be assessing that. They’re also helping with testing kits. We’re very thankful that they are here in our community to help us and they will continue to do that. I wanted our citizens to know they’re here and why they’re here so there wouldn’t be undue concern about that.”
The Whitfield County Health Department is also holding drive-through testing for COVID-19, but you need to call 888-881-1474 in advance. If you’re experiencing symptoms like fever, dry cough, and fatigue, you can call and make an appointment and, if approved, drive by the health department to get tested.
Whitfield County Emergency Management Director Claude Craig reported on the number of cases as released by officials at noon today. In Georgia, there have been 10,566 positive tests, 2,159 hospitalizations, and 379 deaths. Whitfield County has reported 23 positive tests and three deaths.
“One of the things I am noticing is that our hospitalization has been low,” Mr. Craig said, “and that’s a good sign that that is not going up in numbers. That’s going to help us as we talked about the other day to flatten the apex of the curve (in the number of cases). We want to get that curve out and make it a flat line. Our efforts seem to be working, and I just want to ask everybody to continue doing the job that you’re doing on your social distancing and most of all stay home if you don’t have to go anywhere. Doesn’t take all seven of y’all to go get a jar of peanut butter at the Kroger. Use our head and we’ll do the best we can and we’re going to get through this.”
Mr. Craig says he can see the light at the other end of the tunnel. “But we’ve just got to remember we can’t get complacent once we have flattened the curve and say, okay, that’s over with, let’s get back to doing what we were doing. You’re not going to be able to get back to what you were doing anytime soon because we’ve got to watch this thing or we’ll end up as a couple of places in China did. When they thought it was all over with, they said everybody go back to what you want to do, and then boom, it spiked in a couple of days and they were right back in the same situation. We want this thing to be gone; we don’t want to have to deal with it.”
County Attorney Robert Smalley also reported on Governor Brian Kemp’s new executive order Wednesday that extended the declaration of a public health emergency set to expire April 13 until May 13. “As a part of that order, he also extended the stay-at-home order that he had issued last week until April 30,” Mr. Smalley said.
Governor Kemp also announced that short-term rentals won’t be allowed through the end of the month as the state attempts to prevent Georgia from being a destination for people during this emergency. “No new VRBO or Air BNB short-term rentals allowed through April 30 unless booked prior to yesterday,” Mr. Smalley said. “That doesn’t affect hotels or people who have lease agreements in place prior to that time.”
Ms. Laughter also said that the county commissioners will hold their monthly meeting via teleconference on Monday at 5 p.m. Another session of County Connect is also slated for 5 p.m. Tuesday. You can view both meetings at this link on the county’s website: https://livestream.com/accounts/25637515/events/7960637/videos/204211960.