Fulton County’s new elections chief will begin trying to turn around a troubled department next month.
The County Commission voted unanimously to hire a Texas elections administrator, Rick Barron, to be the county’s first permanent elections director since September, when the last one resigned while incarcerated.
Barron, who was given the job Wednesday, starts work in mid-June, giving him four months to prepare for his first big test — November municipal elections, including the mayoral races in Atlanta and Sandy Springs. He says he wants to make voting more convenient, minimize mishaps and become more transparent with operations, which could help repair relations with the Secretary of State’s Office and the news media.
“There are many counties in this state that are the same size or larger than Fulton,” said Barron, 46, who has been in Williamson County, an affluent suburb of Austin, for six years. “They manage to serve every voter in the county. If they can do it, then Fulton County can do it as well.”
Over the years Fulton has become known for botching elections operations, prompting multiple state investigations.
In the July primary, hundreds of voters wound up in the wrong state House and Senate races. In the presidential election, thousands of registered voters didn’t appear on voter rolls because of slow data processing, creating long lines and causing Fulton to use more paper ballots than the entire rest of the state combined.
Secretary of State Brian Kemp is still investigating last year’s troubles. 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.
Through fiascoes and embarrassments, the department has also faced internal turmoil, operating under five directors or interim directors during the past seven years.
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.
Fulton is counting on Barron to fix persistent problems, then stick around.
“This isn’t a two-year hire,” said Leslie Small, a Democratic Party appointee to the elections board. “This is more like a 10-year hire. He seems like somebody who can be here for a long time.”
A report by an independent consultant, Gary Smith, linked mismanagement to instability, attributing many of the problems last year to a lack of institutional knowledge and poor managerial decisions by Westmoreland, who came into the job with questionable credentials.
Smith said one of the first things Barron should do is pore through registration data to make sure ineligible voters aren’t casting ballots.
“He’s going to have to weed out incompetence,” Smith said. “He’s going to have to add training. He’s going to have to backfill open positions that don’t have anybody in them, and he’ll need to add positions that were lost during the last administration.”
One way to eliminate errors, Barron said, is to increase early voting, taking pressure off poll workers on Election Day. In Williamson County, he said, about 65 percent of voters voted early. In Fulton, the figure was about 40 percent in November.
He aims for as many as 25 early-voting locations — Fulton had six last year — though that might be overly ambitious for this year’s races. Voters shouldn’t have to wait more than 20 minutes in line on Election Day, he said.
“The first thing we need to do is get some stability,” Barron said, “and then make changes one step at a time.”
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