Soperton City Council passes intergovernmental agreement with Treutlen County for upcoming elections

The Soperton City Council passed a resolution for an intergovernmental agreement with the Treutlen County Board of Commissioners and Treutlen County Board of Elections and Registration during a call-in meeting on August 13 in the Soperton City Hall, to allow the election board to hold upcoming elections for the city.

“The reason we’re doing this basically is, number one: it helps with the costs of our elections, and number two: we don’t have anybody qualified to be able to run the elections, and it would be cheaper just to allow them to be able to do it,” said Soperton Mayor John Koon.

According to the agreement, the city will allow the election board to hold all municipal elections for the city, including general, special and runoff elections. The election board’s duties will also include qualifying, absentee voting, early voting, Election Day voting and certification.

The City of Soperton will provide the board with notices regarding offices in need of filling, ballot questions and qualifying dates, as well as handling candidate qualification and ethics filings. The city will also assist in updating voter lists and providing other necessary information.

As for cost, the city will reimburse Treutlen County for the documented costs for conducting the municipal elections, with the county sending an invoice to the city within 60 days of an election with a 30-day payment window.

Should a city election overlap with a county, state or federal election, the costs of holding the election will instead be allocated proportionally.

The election board will maintain full operational control over election administration, with exceptions for candidate qualifying and other related filings. For all elections, city and county employees will remain employees of the city of Soperton and Treutlen County, respectively.

According to the agreement, the agreement between the city and county was made in a “desire to maintain a cooperative relationship that promotes efficient and lawful administration of elections.” 

City Councilmember Izell Stephens Jr. offered a motion to pass the resolution to execute the agreement, which passed unanimously.