Everybody Votes

Board of Education Post 3 is basically West Hall County. However, the other morning, while talking to people in North Hall, I had a voter question why I was there since they couldn't vote for me. I tried to explain that Board of Education members in Hall County were elected by everybody in the county, not just the district they represent. The lady then explained to me that I was wrong about that and there was only one at large board member. Well, I accepted that, as I didn't have anything to cite other than what I was told by the elections office. So, I decided to go find out. What I discovered was this:

In 1958 a constitutional amendment provided for the Hall County Board of education be increased to nine members on January 1, 1961 and be elected rather than appointed by the Grand Jury. It also provided for the termination of all board members appointed by the Grand Jury on December 31, 1960. (Ga. L. 1958, Vol. 1, p. 517). It appears that at the time all board members were elected at large. In 1960 a constitutional amendment provided the “The Board of Education of Hall County shall be composed of five members, four of whom shall be elected from their respective districts, as provided for hereinafter, only by the voters of each respective district, and the fifth member shall be elected from the county-at-large by the voters of the entire county.” (Ga. L. 1960, Vol. 1, p. 1199). It further specified district boundaries by collections of militia districts and provided that the board would elect a chairman for a four year term. In 1964 a proposed constitutional amendment provided for staggering of the election of the board members (Ga. L. 1964, Vol. 1, p. 845). By 1972 apparently the voters thought it was time for a change, so a constitutional amendment was passed that said the board would appoint the school superintendent who would serve at the pleasure of the board. But, it also had all the board members elected by the entire school district and not just the ones they came from (HR 585, Ga L. 1972, pp. 1379-1381). That is why everybody in the County, except folks in the Gainesville School District, votes for them today.

There have been a few changes to that set up, but primarily to make sure terms were staggered (Ga. L. 1976, Vol. 1, p. 1910), define boundary changes for the internal districts (Ga. L. 1983, Vol. 2, p. 4553), affirm the constitutional amendments as local law (Ga. L. 1986 Vol. 2, p. 4330), and rearranged the districts based on the census (Ga. L. 1992 Vol. 2, p. 4563), (HB 1730, 2002), and (SB 397, 2012). However, none of these specifically changed the “everybody votes” rule and the next time I am asked what I am doing in North Hall, East Hall, or South Hall asking for votes, I can explain why.