When the Georgia General Assembly convenes in January, Rep. Lehman Franklin will carry forward two pieces of local legislation. One will expand the Bulloch County Board of Elections and Registration from three members to five. The other bill will create a Statesboro Public Facilities Authority that can incur debt to fund the city's construction projects.

Of course Franklin, R-Statesboro, District 160, isn't introducing either bill on his own. As is the practice for state legislation designed to affect just one city or county, each bill has been formally requested by the elected governing board of that jurisdiction. It's not really a requirement that the local board's vote be unanimous, but state lawmakers generally prefer it.

"I've had it in the past that sometimes legislation requests get through that aren't unanimous, and I ask them to go back and hash it out, figure it out so they have a unanimous vote on their councils in that situation," Franklin said. "That's a personal thing that I've always done."

However, both of the Bulloch County and Statesboro requests this year were unanimous when first presented.

Franklin said it's also "just good practice" for members of the local delegation to agree to back such local bills. In these two cases, a draft of the legislation as prepared for the General Assembly has been sent to the city or county staff attorneys for review. If they agreed to that version, he would send the Bulloch County legislation to Rep. Butch Parrish and Rep. Jon Burns, whose districts also include parts of Bulloch.

After all three sign off on this legislation, Franklin will introduce it in the House, he said. Meanwhile, brief notices about the "intent to introduce local legislation" are also appearing in the Statesboro Herald, as the local legal organ, because this is also a requirement.

"I think that both of them are necessary," Franklin said of the two local bills. "We've been talking about it for a while actually, and especially with the election one, with three people on that board, they just need a couple more to make sure they can have a quorum, or if somebody misses, they can't do anything."

Election Board proposal

The movement to add two members to the Board of Elections and Registration began with suggestions from some current and former members of that board and leaders in the Democratic and Republican county party committees. On Nov. 10, the current appointed three-member Elections and Registration Board approved a resolution by a 3-0 vote proposing the change and asking the elected Board of Commissioners to adopt it and request the legislation.

The commissioners then voted 6-0 on Nov. 17 to approve the request for local legislation. Also with unanimous support of the local delegation, its passage in the Legislature will probably be almost automatic.

As drafted, the bill will give the county executive committees of the two major political parties a role in recommending Bulloch County citizens for the two new slots on the Elections Board, but the Board of Commissioners would make all the final appointments. If the wording of the draft that was in commissioners' agenda packets is retained, the legislation would do this without referring to either political party by name.

Two unnamed parties

"One member of the board shall be appointed by the governing authority after consideration of a list of no more than five nominations provided by the local executive committee of the political party whose candidate at the last preceding regular general election for… Governor received the largest number of votes in this state…," one passage prescribes.

The next passage then makes the same allowance for a list of no more than five nominees submitted by the political party whose candidate for governor "received the second-largest number of votes… ."

Except in the case of unscheduled vacancies, each party would be expected to present its slate of possible nominees at least 90 days before the member's term would begin, or the board would "not be required to consider" the nominations.

Still commission's choice

But even after receiving the lists, the "governing authority," in other words the county commissioners, "shall not in any event be required to appoint a member from said list of nominations," stated the draft bill accompanying the county resolution. The commissioners could decide that none of the party-recommended nominees are suitable and instead choose another "elector and resident" of the county. Electors are simply citizens who register to vote in the county, and being one is a basic requirement for any member of the Elections Board.

Election Supervisor Shontay Jones, who works under the direction of that board, said the first person she recalls suggesting that the board needed more members was Len Fatica in his prior service as Bulloch County Democratic Committee chair. Lawton Sack, who previously chaired the Bulloch County Republican Party and served on the Election Board, had also mentioned the idea, Jones recalled.

So the interest in this goes back at least a couple of years, before those two former party chairs ran for a Statesboro council and a Bulloch commission seat, respectively.

One of the concerns was "we had a couple of times when, in the case a board member wasn't there and you needed two signatures to prove" that a decision "moved forward," Jones said.

She had informed County Attorney Jeff Akins that some other Georgia counties have election board members appointed as party representatives. But Akins was concerned that this might not actually be legal. He helped propose the plan whereby the parties can suggest nominees but are not guaranteed a certain number of seats on the board.

"This would just give the parties, to my understanding, some representation by suggesting someone from the party," Jones said. "You know, currently our board functions as a nonpartisan (panel), and even if the parties suggest, it wouldn't change the dynamics of how the decisions were made, still functioning for the better service to the community and the voters."

Akins' concern

Akins, interviewed briefly last week, said the idea is for the commissioners to choose two of the five members based on the parties' suggestions, "unless there's some good reason not to."

"Now I know there are some counties where they've basically delegated the power of appointment to the parties, but there's some question about whether that's legal or not," Akins said.

However, courts' decisions in case law that suggest that such delegation of authority might not be legal are from cases involving other kinds of appointed boards and not necessarily election boards, he said.

Akins said that Franklin had sent him back a legislative version of the proposed bill and that he would be reviewing it to make sure it remains consistent with what the county proposed. The draft version from the Nov. 18 commissioners' packet indicated that the bill is to be introduced in the 2026 legislative session as an amendment to the act that was approved back in 2009 to create the Bulloch County Board of Elections and Registration.

Staggered effect

If enacted, the new version would take effect Jan. 1, 2027, in general, except that a subsection for appointing the first two newly added members with consideration to lists of party-recommended nominees would take effect July 1, 2026. Two members appointed from the initial lists would then serve a one-year term from Jan. 1, 2027, to Dec. 31, 2027, after which two members appointed by that process would serve four-term terms.

But the three other members would continue to serve their four-year terms on the current cycle, and their replacements would be named without any party recommendation process.

"One member that's on there now, his term expires at the end of 2027, so at the end of 2027, that seat and the two new seats will be appointed for four-year terms so they can maintain the staggered terms," Akins said.

The three current members are Chair Theresa Jackson, Vice Chair William Daughtry and Secretary Jim Benton. 

The General Assembly convenes Jan. 12 for the 2026 session.

A separate story will describe the city of Statesboro's proposal for a public facilities authority.