There was an Emergency Special Called Meeting Wednesday morning for the Fannin County Election Board. This meeting was held after Sally Smith, Supervisor of the City of Blue Ridge Election resigned yesterday evening.
According to the agenda the purpose of the meeting was a written request received from the City of Blue Ridge asking the Fannin County Board of Registration & Elections to serve as the Superintendent of Elections for the City of Blue Ridge for the remainder of the November 05, 2013 election cycle.

The board was given a resolution to take over the election. Once the board set the pay for employees to work, the Election Board unanimously passed the resolution.

The resolution that was signed let the Fannin Board of Elections take over the City of Blue Ridge election as of 12 Noon on Oct. 23rd.

Once the county officially takes over the city’s ballot box will be sealed until the night of Nov. 5th when the count will take place.

As for the first 13 ballots that where processed incorrectly due to human error, they will be counted. This is because the voter knew that he or she was doing nothing wrong. It was the Superintendent of the Election’s mistake so the vote will count.

Once the county opens the ballot box they know that there will be five extra votes than people. These five votes will be taken out. The five extra votes came when Ms. Smith called five of the 13 voters back in to recast his or her vote after she figured out she made the mistake.

The county has not and does not plan to contact the other eight voters as their first voter will count. If one of the eight comes in they will fill out the correct paper work that was over looked but will not be allowed to vote again.

According to County Attorney Lynn Doss this election is under investigation with the Secretary of the State of Elections. The investigation should start before the weeks end.

Chairman of the County Board of Elections Mary Ann Conner stated that she will have board members present at the city elections from here through Nov. 5th. Doss agreed this was the best thing to do and that someone from the state may be there as the investigation continues.

Because of all of these factors the county will put all new votes that come in after noontime of the 23rd in a new ballot box to keep them separate. The two boxes will be counted together, but tallies will be made and kept of what votes came from what box.

Mayoral Candidate Michael Eaton was present at the meeting. After the county approved the resolution, Eaton pleaded with the board,

“I ask that we rely as heavily as we can on the state and get the information from them whenever possible Ms. Doss definitely has a Donna Whitener sign in her front yard so there is a little bit of bias that concerns me there.”

Doss agreed however she and Conner would go on to explain to Eaton most of the time the state will tell the Election Board to contact the County Attorney if issues arise.

Doss gave the county board a warning that if any race is closer that 13 votes they could be facing a “challenged election.”

This could mean a further in-depth investigation by the state and could possibly result in a re-election.

During the meeting questions came about how to deal with the absentee ballots and how they will be handled. FYN has learned that some of the absentee ballots took too long to be processed and could have been handled wrong by Smith. FYN will give you details as they come in.

FYN also has spoken with each of the Mayoral Candidates to try and set up a debate between the two. Stay with Fetch as the story develops.