As advanced voting opened on Monday, early voters at Bessie Branham Recreation Center in Kirkwood received inaccurate ballots for the Atlanta Board of Education race.
Instead of District 3 incumbent Michelle Olympiadis and candidate Ken Zeff, voters saw the name of District 1 incumbent Katie Howard.
The Georgia legislature passed Senate Bill 317 in June to change APS board of education districts, but county election offices received the wrong information for the Nov. 7 election. SB317 reapportioned the board of education election districts, among other changes.
Two voters on Oct. 16 alerted the DeKalb Election office and state Rep. Saira Draper about the ballot error.
Draper is an election law attorney who headed the voting rights effort for the Democratic Party of Georgia before running for office.
Constituents Brittany Schwartzwald and Christina Hodgen contacted Draper, reporting that the District 3 Atlanta school board race wasn’t on their ballot as expected.
“I knew the school board district lines had recently been redrawn, and I suspected the old maps were still being used, resulting in incorrect ballots for a small portion of Atlanta residents. I reached out to the DeKalb County and Fulton County Boards of Elections, as well as the city of Atlanta, to alert them of my suspicions. DeKalb confirmed it had been instructed to use the old set of maps. As of this morning, DeKalb was able to re-import the correct maps and resolve the issue. I voted today around noon, and my ballot was correct. The issue is still being investigated in Fulton,” Draper said.
She added: “Issues like this can easily be prevented if ballots are open for inspection before being finalized. Other states allow for limited ‘ballot proofing’ by stakeholders, and I’ll be exploring this possibility before the next legislative session.”
By the afternoon of Oct. 17, DeKalb County Elections Board had remedied ballots. Sample ballots on the Georgia Secretary of State My Voter Page were still incorrect.
This story will be updated as we get more information.
