Late in the evening of the Dec. 6 runoff election for Georgia’s U.S.
Senate seat, the last of the poll workers and onlookers trickled out of the Putnam County Board of Elections and Registration office in the county administration building.
For voters, the hardest part of that day may have been finding a parking space. Or maybe a little patience for standing in line to sign in, but beyond that the voting part was essentially quick and easy: a single race with a choice of two candidates.
However, for the election board’s three staff members, the Dec. 6 runoff looked very much like November’s general election—just with shortened deadlines for confirming poll workers for the five precincts, reviewing procedures with poll managers and workers, getting about 700 absentee ballots printed and in the mail, overseeing a one-week advance voting period, moving and setting up all the equipment in the five precincts, and then balancing sign-ins with cast ballots, not to mention establishing vote totals from the precincts.
Election day? Just another 16-hour day at the office.
With that as context, and with the clock bearing down on 11 p.m., Elections Board Chairman Charles Patten asked acting elections supervisor Kimberly Rudolph to join him in her office. The rest of the board was sitting there waiting on her.
Back in July, when then-elections supervisor Lynn Lasiter told the board she was getting married in the fall and moving to South Carolina, Rudolph had been tabbed as assistant elections supervisor, although she had been working in the elections office only since late last winter. Rudolph was a poll worker in last year’s lightly voted TSPLOST referendum and worked in the elections office during the May and June party primaries and run-offs.
As Lasiter’s departure approached in September, Rudolph was the only applicant to replace her.
However, the board was hesitant to give her the job based on her lack of experience in all it takes to run an election.
Upon settling into Rudolph’s office last week, Patten told her the board had voted that very night to change her title. In short, he said the board was well-pleased with the smoothness and organization of the November general election and December’s runoff under her watch. They quickly voted to drop the “acting” part of Rudolph’s title, officially making her Putnam County’s new elections supervisor.
A day or two later, Rudolph said it was all the doubts raised about election integrity that prompted her to volunteer as a poll worker last year.
“I wanted to be part of the solution,” she said.
“And I know that in our county, we are accurate in what we do.”
Rudolph had been operating a small business of housecleaners, something she said she plans to continue as a side gig, but after the poll worker experience, a friend urged her to apply for the opening in the elections office.
“It’s a very clerical position, and I like that.
Administration. And it is social. I like working with people,” Rudolph said. “It’s just a good fit for me.”
The local elections board apparently agrees now, too.