This past Friday, county election officials across the state of Georgia heard from the Secretary of State’s office about election security in a conference call.  In Chattooga County, local elections are still overseen by the Chattooga County Probate Judge’s Office and are conducted by the Chattooga County Registrar.

In the call last Friday with county election officials from across the state, Blake Evans, director of the secretary of state’s Elections Division, said the state will be conducting “health checks” in all 159 Georgia counties. The health checks will examine election management systems, ballot marking devices, and scanners to verify that the software used in last year’s elections has not been changed.

The secretary of state’s office also will coordinate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to conduct security assessments of the storage and warehousing of all election equipment in each county, Evans said.