‘Absolute cream of the crop.’ Why GA lawmakers praised Muscogee elections director
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office and a committee of state senators praised Columbus’ election director Thursday for her department’s smooth operations, including a presidential recount that was finished with no major issues.
The recount wrapped up Wednesday night, and executive director of the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration Nancy Boren told the Ledger-Enquirer her office has recertified the results.
Counties had a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to complete the recount. Counties that need to update their totals have a re-certification deadline of early Friday so state officials can finalize the results by Friday afternoon.
Boren was slated to appear before the senate committee Thursday morning, but Columbus state Sen. Randy Robertson told the committee that recount duties kept her from appearing. Robertson said Muscogee County should be an example for the rest of the state.
“My reason for inviting Ms. Boren here is that consistently she has been recognized as one of the absolute cream of the crop registrars dealing with a city of approximately 200,000 people that can get fairly chaotic during elections,” he said. “Ms. Boren has been the absolute example of how elections are managed.”
Boren has served as Columbus’ top elections official since December 1995, after spending time as a deputy coroner and an affirmative action officer for the city.
Muscogee’s recount
Boren said Columbus’ recount went smoothly, with her staff feeding stacks of ballots through optical scanners to get another tally in the presidential election.
They started feeding the ballots through around 2 p.m. Monday after Boren took questions from party representatives monitoring the recount and then tested the scanners for accuracy.
After putting in long hours Tuesday and Wednesday, the recount wrapped up around 7 p.m. Wednesday.
“If there’s any change in the votes whatsoever, the board will recertify the election for the office of president, and then at that point, we’re finished with the recount,” she said.
The five-member elections board met Thursday afternoon to recertify the results to forward to the Georgia Secretary of State. As of noon Thursday, 156 of Georgia’s 159 counties have finished retallying the presidential ballots.
Here are the results the board certified:
- President Donald Trump: 30,107.
- Former Vice-President Joe Biden: 49,446.
- Libertarian Jo Jorgensen: 961.
What changed from June to November?
The November election, hand audit and presidential recount were not plagued by the same problems some Columbus residents experienced during the June 2020 primary election. Voters then were told they were at the wrong precinct, and some spent hours waiting in line. A court order extended voting hours in the county.
Boren blamed a flaw in the state data that affected polling locations at Canaan Baptist Church off Woodruff Farm Road and Holsey Monumental CME Church on Buena Vista Road. Canaan’s voters had been assigned to Holsey; Holsey’s voters had been assigned to Canaan.
“It wasn’t the voting machines,” Boren told the Ledger-Enquirer in June. “It was the check-in, where a voter checks in to get their voter card, to go to the ballot marking devices. The data that was on the Canaan check-in pad had Holsey voters, and the information that was on the Holsey check-in pad had Canaan voters.”
The switched data set issue was fixed before an August special election, and the county opened several early voting sites around Columbus for the November election. Of the nearly 81,000 ballots cast, more than half came from early, in-person voting, according to data previously provided by county election officials.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a news conference days after the election that Muscogee County was “very current” and kept up with processing absentee ballots. Columbus election officials started scanning those ballots on Oct. 19, more than two weeks before Election Day.
“Nancy Boren is undoubtedly one of the best election directors in our state,” said Ryan Germany, general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, during Thursday’s hearing.
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 12:34 PM.