Putnam County Administrator of Election Michele Honeycutt part of statewide training this week designed to maintain the state’s integrity.
Honeycutt said annual training is mandatory for election administrators to learn about state regulations and secure voting practices. Honeycutt said the training helps officials navigate potential election day emergencies, like natural disasters.
“One was the cyber threats that can happen,” Honeycutt said. “One is like, on election day, a whole precinct gets sick for some reason and call in, and they did say that did happen in one county. So, we go through what we can do to remedy the situation and get through the day.”
Honeycutt said the training covers topics like campaign finance and new laws.
Honeycutt said training also gives guidelines on list maintenance, which gives guidelines for keeping track of registered voters. Honeycutt said list maintenance is completed every other year.
“We send things out to people we have not heard from in the last four years,” Honeycutt said. “That’s two federal elections. It’s four years and we have not heard from them, so we might think maybe they’re nor registered there and they’ve moved. We send mailings out to them and they can come back undeliverable. If they’re forwardable, voters let us know and maybe give us an address out of state, so we purge those.”
Honeycutt said the office is notified if a Putnam County voter registers somewhere else in the state. When this happens, old registrations are removed. She said the office sometimes gets calls to ask if dead people are still in the system.
“Once a month, we get a death report from the state,” Honeycutt said. “And it’s anyone who has passed away in the state. Every day, we are checking the obituaries also. So as long as we have a match, we are purging those people.”
Honeycutt said all but one person in the election office completed this year’s election training.
Putnam County goes above state regulations in an effort to keep elections secure. For example, Honeycutt said the county IT department adds extra security while votes are counted.
“They are over here on election night when all the results are coming back,” Honeycutt said. “They’re putting it up on the website, but the way they put it up, we’re not connected to the internet at all. They’re putting it up on a different site that has internet so no one can get into our election night computer.”
