Elections division was ‘in disarray,’ new chief says

(Chatthoochee Hills, College Park, Mountain Park and Palmetto all run their own elections.)

During the long search for a qualified professional to lead Fulton County’s troubled elections office, the operation may have fallen into even worse shape than its critics realized.

In a confidential memo, new Elections Director Rick Barron described the team responsible for keying in voter registrations as being “in disarray and lacking discipline.” That was in mid-July, about a month after he took over an office that endured a chain reaction of blunders during last year’s presidential election so severe the state is now investigating.

“I am unsure if much respect exists between the staff and management,” Barron wrote in the memo, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained through an open records request after he declined to explain why he fired the woman who ran the office before him. “The department looks unorganized and inefficient.”

His harsh assessment raises questions about whether he can shape up the chronically malfunctioning department in time to run smooth elections this fall for Atlanta, nine other cities and the Atlanta school board. The governments will collectively pay Fulton about $1.5 million to $2.5 million to run their polls.

Early voting starts in seven weeks, and Barron’s success or failure will have major implications for tens of thousands of voters.

Hiccups or repeats of past mistakes could mean slow-moving lines, registered voters improperly made to use provisional ballots, voters given ballots for the wrong city council districts, or razor-close elections with no clear winners. Botched procedures could also lead to recounts or litigation, costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars to sort out.

“I think he’s probably in a tough place, but I think he’s making the right decisions,” said Gary Smith, an elections expert who worked as a consultant for Fulton last year. “I don’t think it’s easy. He’s trying to make up for years of mismanagement.”

County Commissioner Liz Hausmann, who criticized long lines last year at an early-voting site serving north Fulton, has had Barron in her office twice for updates on his progress.

“It’s really important that we restore confidence in the citizens of Fulton County that when they cast a vote, all the right things happen to make sure that vote gets counted,” Hausmann said.

Barron has dismissed two other workers since firing former interim Director Sharon Mitchell. He again declined to explain why.

Mitchell, who had been serving as one of his top administrators overseeing registrations, has since filed a discrimination complaint, Registration and Elections Board Chairwoman Mary Carole Cooney confirmed.

Mitchell started running the department after the last director, Sam Westmoreland, resigned while jailed for failing to follow sentencing terms involving two convictions of driving under the influence related to prescription drugs.

In the past seven years, the Registration and Elections Department has had five directors or interim directors.

“That’s a lot of turnover,” Barron said. “You think about a football team that just goes through coaches, and they just don’t get anywhere.”

In the memo, which Barron put in Mitchell’s personnel file before telling her to clear out her desk, he expressed disapproval of how she incessantly defended her department’s performance after the November fiasco. “She has consistently blamed others for the errors in the department,” he said, and “she deflected all responsibility from herself and the department.”

Thousands of registered voters didn’t appear on voter rolls. Precincts ran out of paper ballots, creating long lines as poll workers waited for more ballots. Some voters gave up and left.

In the aftermath, Mitchell at one point blamed poll workers for not following their training, but poll workers shot back that the main office was still delivering lists of registered voters hours after polls had opened.

Mitchell has not returned several messages that the AJC left on her cellphone. But in a letter to Barron she called his treatment of her “insulting, unprofessional and humiliating,” considering how she took over the department with the 2012 election just six weeks away.

“The manner in which I was handled, including advising me that I was to remove my things by the end of the day, was commensurate with employees facing termination due to theft, disruptive behavior or a threat to the organization, none of which applied to me,” Mitchell said.

Smith, the former consultant, wrote a report to the elections board that pinned much of the blame for last year’s polling troubles on bad management by Westmoreland.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp is still investigating, and the State Election Board, which regulates county elections, could ultimately decide whether to dismiss charges against the county, impose sanctions or refer cases to the Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution.

Smith’s report said a top priority should be cleaning up the voter registration database.

Barron apparently became concerned about Mitchell’s performance after discovering last month that about 14,000 applications hadn’t been entered into the state’s data system, which allows voters to use touch-screen machines when they show up at polls.

In April, Mitchell had told elections board members that her staff had spent so much time responding to requests from state investigators, they had fallen behind. Barron however, said another staff member gave him a different explanation: In February, they stopped keying in applications coming from the state Department of Driver Services — apparently because the system wasn’t automatically entering some data fields properly.

Barron had employees work overtime until they got caught up.

Stan Matarazzo, the only county elections board member who was serving at the time Mitchell got bumped up to interim director, said she was the only employee qualified to take over after Westmoreland’s departure.

“No matter what she said or did, what were we going to do?” he said. “We were searching for a new director that whole time.”