FORT VALLEY, Ga. — The 2024 election is drawing ever closer.
Early voting begins on Oct. 15, which is less than a month away.
As such, poll workers have begun to prepare for the early voting period, which includes training new workers. Each poll worker had to be a citizen of Peach County or received a waiver to work in Peach County.
25 people recently attended a training at the Peach County Government Center in Fort Valley.
They were tasked with learning the new rules that the Georgia State Elections Board put into place, including that votes must be hand counted to check against what the vote tallying machine had processed.
The other rules include the following:
An accompanying rule that was proposed alongside the hand-count rule
A rule, which requires the printing of emergency/provisional ballots and absentee ballots separately and distinctly.
A rule, which provides for the public publishing of precinct-level reconciliation reports and passed with a 4-0 vote.
A rule, which requires "a daily reporting system to publicly share the total number of voters who have participated, beginning from the start of advance voting."
A rule that "designates additional areas within the tabulating centers in which poll watchers are permitted to view tabulation and reconciliation processes."
The workers were trained on counting the ballots and how the ballot counting would be divided between each worker.
Early voting runs from Oct. 15 through Nov. 1. Absentee ballots will be mailed starting Oct. 7, which is also the last day of voter registration. Nov. 5 is election day.
The training went on from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
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