By Stephanie Johns
Staff Writer

The Morgan County Board of Elections and Registration heard about a new voter registration system called “ElectionNet” during their December meeting.

Elections Supervisor Bobby Howington, Deputy Registrar Sue DoorenBos, and Board Member John Milliken attended a week-long training in Athens earlier this month to learn about it.

Milliken said the new system is “far, far better” than the previous one, which was called “Go Network.”
“It’s a major step improvement over what we had,” he said. He added that modifications to the system were “made on the fly” as participants suggested improvements.

Howington and DorrenBos said the new system is live and they are using it now.
Board Member David Moore asked if there were any reconciliation measures taken to ensure no data was lost.

DorrenBos said that is one of the kinks the designers were working on.
Howington added that they had to prepare migration reports prior to going live.

In other news, board members voted to have the list of voters who have died come before them as it currently does.

Howington shared details about a new cleanup bill, 21-2-231(e.1)(e.1), that allows county registrars, such as DorrenBos, to delete the names of deceased voters from the list of electors.

He noted that some other counties are taking care of this by allowing their county registrars to handle deletions while some counties continue to bring the list of deceased to their boards for a vote.
“The decision is up to the board,” he said.

Milliken pointed out that Chairman George Holt holds the title of Chief Registrar while Board Member Avery Jackson holds the title of Deputy Registrar.

“This portion of law clarifies what we’re doing,” he said. “I see no conflict between this and what we’re doing.” 

Printed in the December 27, 2012 edition