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The night of the elections left the voters and the candidates on the edge of their seats. Now, well after November 6, the offices of the Secretary of State and District 3 of Georgia's Public Service Commission are still undecided. Although the governor's race took center stage until Democrat Stacey Abrams ended his candidacy on November 16, the Secretary of State's race is preparing for a second round on December 4.
The secretary of state's duties include registering companies in the state, supervising licensing of certain professions, regulating the securities market and organizing elections.
John Barrow, Democratic candidate for this post, was born in Athens. He graduated from Clarke Central High School and earned his BA from the University of Georgia. He lives in Savannah, in the 12th congressional district of Georgia, for which he was a member of the US Congress for 10 years.
The county of Athens-Clarke was formerly part of District 12, but was later redesigned and divided between Districts 9 and 10.
Barrow discussed recent events and controversies surrounding the Secretary of State's office and how he would manage them, as well as his preparation for the second round. He feels that this year's mid-term exams have earned the Secretary of State greater attention and greater satisfaction.
"If people did not know it was important, they knew it now," he said.
After the elections, many voters expressed dissatisfaction with the way it was run, long queues at the polls, and missing power cords for voting machines. This has been associated with meticulous accounts and court proceedings about mail and provisional ballots, which have also rejected the latest calls.
Governor-elect and former Secretary of State Brian Kemp faced calls for resignation due to an alleged conflict of interest – he was the highest election official in the state as he was a governor.
"A lot of the problems I've talked about as part of this campaign, people are now focusing for the first time because of the proximity of the result of the governor's race," Barrow said. "Things like trying to make voting easier for people without making it easier for those who cheat."
Barrow referred to the exact matching policy, which was referred to the courts. The law reported that voter registration was inconsistent with other forms of identification, ranging from a typo to a hyphen. This led to the registration of thousands of pending recordings a few weeks before the elections.
"The Secretary of State's office will have information that does not match the identity of citizens, and that's a problem we have to solve," said Barrow.
Expressing his dissatisfaction with the way mail ballots were handled, Barrow said other states are making it easier for voters to use the paper ballot.
"These are things that they do in other states, and all of these problems arise during our election because we are not following the times," said Barrow.
In addition to the mail ballots, Mr. Barrow also stated that he wanted to revise the polls in person, starting with the voting machines. Georgia's touch-screen voting machines were introduced in 2002, giving them 16 years of service.
Despite the requests for replacement, supported by a trial at the beginning of the year to send them back, the machines were used in this year's elections. There is currently no plan to replace them.
Barrow himself called for the decommissioning of machines in February, but to no avail.
"These machines have long survived their useful life … it's something that should have been planned and provided for a long time," added Barrow, "Anyone who periodically uses a large infrastructure requires lifecycle plan for retirement what they use … there is no plan for retirement from them. "
His solution is not online voting, as some voters have recently recommended. Barrow is a supporter of paper ballots and optical scanners, which are, he says, safer and easier to use.
Barrow has some concerns about online voting.
"I have real concerns and the election integrity community has serious concerns about the use of technology to record and count votes," Barrow said. "If people lack confidence in these old primitive machines, they care differently about new and improved machines."
He says that there should be a uniform mix of technologies to make them more efficient.
"A moment" back to the future "is appropriate when we use the best of old and new," Barrow said.
Eliminating voters was another hot topic of this year's elections. Kemp was accused by his opponent and civil rights groups of electoral repression.
When asked about these concerns, Barrow proposed its definition of deletion and its solutions to address it.
"Deletion is a word that tends to be overused. I think anything we do that makes it more difficult for some people to undermine the right to vote, "said Barrow. "Every honest citizen should be able to vote as easily as any other honest citizen."
If voting is more difficult for some, there must be a valid benefit and justification, Barrow said.
The American Civil Liberties Union argues that voter identification laws, such as those in Georgia, constitute a form of voter repression. Barrow admitted that they had an impact on part of the population, but did not hesitate to express support for these laws.
"I support strong identity cards, I just think we can take care of the very small percentage of those who can not get one without fault from them," Barrow said.
Another problem with the repression charges was the "cleansing" or "purging" of voters lists by the Secretary of State's office. Barrow said that this process is required by federal law but that it was improperly executed in the state of Georgia.
"It's a good practice to keep clean and up-to-date roles … What I think we need to do is insist on doing it in a way that uses only specific information and does not use the information to purge people from knowing lists are going to be inaccurate to a significant degree, "Barrow said.
Barrow's opponent, Republican Brad Raffensperger, did not respond to requests for comment.
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