Keepers of Our Republic
Keepers of the Republic is a new podcast from Keep Our Republic that takes listeners inside the institutions at the heart of American democracy. Through thoughtful conversations with election officials, county clerks, legal experts, and retired federal judges, we explore how elections are really run, separate fact from fiction, and highlight why an independent judiciary is essential to a strong republic.
At a time of uncertainty and misinformation, Keepers of the Republic provides trusted, nonpartisan insights into how our democracy works—and how, together, we can keep it strong.
Keepers of Our Republic
The Election Director Who Loves Proving Conspiracy Theories Wrong
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This week on Keepers of Our Republic, host Tate Fall sits down with Brook Schreiner, Elections Director for Chatham County, Georgia, to discuss what it takes to administer elections in one of the state's largest and most diverse counties.
After spending more than a decade in election administration, everywhere from large metro counties to rural communities, Brook shares why she continues to do this work, how election offices adapt to changing laws and growing populations, and what voters rarely see behind the scenes.
The conversation explores everything from polling place planning and election audits to voter outreach, professional training, and the importance of meeting voters where they are.
Whether you're curious about how local elections actually work or wondering what election officials do between Election Days, this episode offers an inside look at the people dedicated to making every election secure, accurate, and accessible.
Guest: Brook Schreiner, Elections Director, Chatham County, Georgia
Welcome back to Keepers of our Republic, a new weekly podcast from Keep Our Republic that takes listeners inside the institutions at the heart of American democracy.
Every week, Keepers of Our Republic features thoughtful conversations with election administrators and retired federal judges. We explore how elections are really run, discuss why an independent judiciary is essential to a strong republic, and separate fact from fiction in a fast-changing world.
Learn more about Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan nonprofit, at our website, https://keepourrepublic.org
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Welcome back to Keepers of Our Republic, a weekly nonpartisan podcast talking to election officials and judges about defending the rule of law and free and fair elections, also known as How We Keep Our Republic. I'm your host, Tate Fall. If this is your first time joining us, don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button and join us here every week on Thursdays for these conversations. Today I'm joined by Book Brooke Schreiner, Director of Elections in coastal Chatham County, Georgia. Brooke recently joined the Chatham County team after previously serving as the director in Bus County, Georgia. Thank you, Brooke, for joining me today.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01I can never tell you no. I appreciate it. It's good to have friends like you, I have to say. Oh my goodness have friends like you too. Oh, so why don't you start off by telling our listener just a little bit about you, how you got into elections, and also tell us amid all the craziness, why do you stay?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So I've actually been in elections for 16 years. Um 20 2011 or towards the end of 2010, my dad was good friends with the director in Henry County. And they were out at their favorite watering hole, we'll call it. And um, she needed an assistant. Um, her previous assistant did pass away, and so she had a position to fill. And me being married with two young babies, and I needed insurance. And I was like, Oh, this should be easy. They don't do nothing, just election day and early voting, you know. So, of course, I applied and she hired me. And boy, was I wrong. And so Henry County was still and it still is the top seven to ten counties in Georgia, and got lots of things to learn very quickly. Um, I was over the poll workers and polling locations, plus did the voter registrations, and then I got my hands into the machines. And so spent there until 2021. Um, and then there was an opportunity for Butts County needing a new director, and I was ready for a change. I was ready to lead, and I said, What a better way to do a small county. So I jumped there and was there for I love it, I miss it. My one polling place. But um then coming to Chatham, my my counterpart, my was my old employee, Karen, you know, Karen, uh, she saw the job and she says, Well, if you don't apply for it, I'm gonna apply for you. So I was like, Well, I better beat her to it. And I just just going on a whim, applied for it, and landed here in Chatham. So that's where I'm at now.
SPEAKER_01I love it, I love it. And why do you keep coming back? I mean, it's crazy, it's tough, it's long hours. Tell me what what's your why?
SPEAKER_02It's the satisfaction at the end of the night that we did everything by the book, and we prove people wrong, and we show that we are here, not uh on a political back end and fighting for one candidate. This is it. I love proving conspiracy people wrong, and I love the constant challenge of legislation changes. Didn't think I would ever be a big legislation nerd, but here I am, part of the legislation committee, um, fighting what's right. If you know a legislator comes to me or a state election board or even my board comes to me, hey, I think we need to do it this way, especially with like the drop boxes or uh polling location changes or whatever have you. And I'm like, no, let's look at this. I'm always on the voter side. So because they feel like they don't have a voice. So a lot of 159 directors in Georgia now are their voices, and we actually do have a seat at the table.
SPEAKER_01That's right. I love it. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Um, so tell us a little bit about Chatham, how many voters you have, how many precincts you have, your staff, and anything that's unique about Chatham.
SPEAKER_02Well, Chatham is um, people don't really know that this is Chatham County. Everybody thinks it's Savannah. We actually have seven uh seven or nine cities. Um, one city has not had an election in about 30 years, so we don't really count them, although we might have a special one in November. Um, and so that's a big change. We have 81 polling locations um this summer. A lot of some of them are co-locating. I've never heard of this word until I moved here. Um, but you may have heard of it with you coming from Cobb. So this that's been something new with me with co-locating. Um, so this summer we are hoping to try to get it down to 75 polling locations. Nice. Just to merge the co-locating ones that have been co-locating for about two or three years. Um, and our roughly our estimated is 221,000 registered voters. Um, and everybody, all the cities really are passionate about their areas, especially Tybee, Pooler. They are very passionate and don't want to see nothing change.
unknownI guess.
SPEAKER_02And what's really weird and odd is you'll see most of our polling locations in downtown Savannah. And you when I looked at the map before coming here and doing my homework, I was like, why do they have two polling locations within literally four blocks of each other? Those are very historic. And I have to remember coming from Metro Atlanta area and then to the rural area, a lot of people downtown because everything is so accessible, they don't have cars. They walk or use the bus. So that's why there is so many more in downtown Savannah, is because it's walk more feasible to walk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that totally makes sense. I think like the density changes so much throughout your county that you could see that same density apply to your polling places, which I think is really interesting. I had the same thing in when I was in Arlington, Virginia, where we wanted to make sure that you were never, you know, more than a five-minute walk to a Dropbox or, you know, your polling place, they had to be able to walk to because the same, these people that live there, they took the metro everywhere. So they needed to be able to walk to their polling place. And I know you mentioned co-locating precincts for our listeners who aren't familiar with the lingo, that is when you have two polling places co-locating in the same physical location. So I think a lot of times we talk about polling places and we talk about precincts as if they're interchangeable, but they're not. So a precinct is the physical boundary around the people in your little area that vote. So whatever that is to your precinct, and then the polling place is where you actually go to vote, where you go to cast your ballot on election day. So, in a lot of counties where you have a lot of precincts, and they could be a lot because of the district lines and how they're drawn, having lots of cities is going to change how your congressional districts and all your state districts are drawn. And so when you have a lot, especially now, I really noticed really starting after 2020 with COVID, a lot of places that were polling places for decades no longer want to participate, whether it's because of the burden of having that location there, um, they don't want to be involved politically. A lot of churches have withdrawn because they don't want to be seen as being part of the politics. And so, because of that, when you have less physical polling places, sometimes you have to co-locate two precincts in one site. So they may have totally separate voting equipment. They may be in a gym or in a fellowship hall. And if you vote, you know, at precinct 101, you're over here, precinct 104, you go over here. And so I love that you're actually looking at combining those to help reduce cost, personnel, equipment, all of confusion, all of those things. I think that that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And I think the only time that Chatham County will ever use co-locating again is for an emergency situation. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot, it's a lot of extra signage and workers, and yeah, and it is confusing, totally. I totally see that. So I think that that's great. I'm glad to hear that. Um, like we talked about, you previously worked in Butz County. Um, tell our listeners a little bit about the biggest changes or differences that you've noticed going from a small county to such a large county and just anything that you learned and noticed in that transition.
SPEAKER_02Well, in Butts County, it's and because I partially grew up in Butz County, because I mainly grew up in Henry County for school, and then the summer times and we would I would grow up in at Butz County because of the lake. So I was kind of already a little bit unknown, but after six months of being there, everybody knew me. And so it was still Mayberry and go, you know, one polling location, same location as your advanced voting, um, you know, very close connection, working connections with the county manager, with the judges, with the sheriff. Here you've got a lot more people to deal with. I only talked to the county manager, the or the county attorney. County manager will might check up on me right before um election time to see, hey, what you need from us. Um just able to go to a grocery store and nobody stopping me saying, Hey, when's my sample ballot? Or hey, and you know, and plus in Butts County, I was able, I was both voter registration and elections. Here, I'm just strictly preparing for the machines for advanced voting, proofing the um the ballots, the doing the precinct changes and getting everything ready for election day. But I really do like being able to go anywhere and nobody stopping me and asking me election questions.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it, and it's definitely different scenic wise, like we talked about, it's different density-wise. And so I think there's a lot of changes to where with butts being more rural, but also being metro adjacent. But then you have Chatham, where I'm sure that there are rural parts, but then you have really dense parts, and then you have tourist parts, and yes, very tourists.
SPEAKER_02And then our homeless number homeless, our homeless people, they are their numbers are really up, and they actually do vote. And now I have one voter that poor on the voter registration side had to create a combo for because he lives on a boat in the middle of the in the canal. And so I'm like, dude, can you not just park your boat and let's use that and not have a special ballot for you? But yes, no, he lives on his shrimping boat, and you can see when you go to Tybee. So, yes.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing. I mean, the links that you go to to serve all your voters and to make sure they're getting the right people on their ballot.
SPEAKER_02It's a lot of work, it is, especially I've never had just the one random person who lives on a boat in the middle of the ocean.
SPEAKER_01That's hilarious. That is pretty unique. I I will say that is not something I've heard. And so I love that that shows that you really do election officials really do take everything into consideration. You know, you really are looking and making sure you're serving the voter accurately and and making sure it's accessible. So I think that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um, these are that bad too, you know, 20 minutes away from the beach.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I know it. I love I love Savannah. I love Tybee. I love going out there. So it's definitely not a bad place to live, I would say. Uh, one of the things that you've done in Chatham that I love that I've been reading and keeping up with is a monthly election newsletter. I want to know how did that get started and what's kind of your goal in pushing that out to your voters.
SPEAKER_02So I actually started this back in Butts um with a monthly newsletter. Um, then I brought it to when I came first thing, my first thing was let's get a newsletter out to inform all the voters. Now that we're kind of winding down, um, Steph and I re-looked at it. So it won't be a monthly, we're gonna change it to actually quarterly, because when it's a what we call an off-season to voters, it's not an off-season for us, but we would be just repeating the same abundance thing. So we're gonna now change it to quarterly. Um, but our goal is to get all the information so people cannot say that they've not seen it because they're so tired of hearing it, you know, saying, well, we post it on the website and we post it on in the paper, so we put it on the website, we put it on Facebook, and then we get so much foot traffic of people trying to see if where their absentee is or trying to find the because we're in the same building as the um the driver's services, so they're trying to find them or trying to find the tag office, and they see that newsletter. Oh, okay. And so people have really just it's gotten lots of hits, even with all the new changes of the QR code changes. I'm keeping them updated with that for candidates of when they need to file that's on that, and just little fun tidbits too of election facts.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I think it's it's tough because you're right. Sometimes it is like uh, you know, just saying the same thing over and over again. It's on the website, or you know, we try to post to social media. And so I think that that's what's tough is that not not all your voters, especially an accounting like yours, get their information the same way, you know, and it's not really as efficient now. You know, we used to send out letters and postcards for everything and mail them, and that's not really as efficient now because A, we have so much return mail, and B, I mean, everyone just gathers up their junk mail and tosses it in the trash, you know, and especially in the middle of voting season, everyone's getting inundated with political mail. So I think I love that having the newsletter out in high traffic areas in your county. So while they're already waiting for it to be called up for their license or their tag, they can read over it and make sure that they know what's going on there in Chatham. I think that that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I love it. We talked about this a little bit already. You mentioned it. And when I had Tawny Adams on recently, we spoke about his time in Heard County when the two boards were combined and he became kind of both. And in Chatham, you have two separate boards, which is really unique. Um, can you tell our listeners a little bit about what that structure looks like and how it differs from other counties that have a combined board?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so there's only 157 boards that are combined. Um, I think it's us in Union County that are the only two left. So we have a board of registrations, and Sabrina German is the director over that. Um, and they handle all registrations, uh, voter challenges, absentee by mail, and absentee in person. And then also the precinct lines. Um, here we have the board of elections, which my board and her board is all appointed. My board is two, the four of them are elected by the voters of Chatham. And then them two appoint my chairman. And so what we handle is they are the election superintendent, I'm the election supervisor. We handle machines, the precincts, election day operations, getting the uh machines prepared for advanced in persons, and then basically we also have to be in line with whatever the code says that they are in charge of, and we certify all the elections and do the recounts and all the RLAs and all that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's so interesting. And I know that you know, in like you said, there's only two boards left. And we talked about with Tanya about, you know, probate judges used to be involved, and then they those roles were removed, and every state is different, like in Alabama, probate judges are still part of the election day experience. And I think it's interesting about how you have this separation, and but you're all still, you know, following the same laws, you're still making sure you're meeting the same deadlines. And so I'm curious about how what that's been like for you to go from having all of those duties in Butts County to kind of having your own little section.
SPEAKER_02It's it's hard to take off the VR hat at times. It really, really is. But in a way, I'm like, we still have to, both sides still have to work together. And so, but it's hard for me to kind of put off that VR hat because Sabrina is doing her job and her team is doing a job too. So, but anything that I can help out, I will try to come in and be like, hey, can we tweak it a little or something? And but it's definitely a challenge to try to, once you've done that job for 16 years, to just stick with the machines.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I bet. But I think it's also nice that you have all of that understanding because I think it helps kind of color your, you know, the way that you approach things, and I think that that's a huge benefit that you have.
SPEAKER_02And we are both both Sabrina and I are lucky. I think um, I know I have a staff of 10, and I believe she may have a staff of about 10. So me not just in Butts County, it was just me and Karen. So just us two doing everything and then having a support team underneath us. My predecessor, Billy Wooten, he did a great job with the election staff, and he really stacked this place up with some great staff.
SPEAKER_01It's awesome. It's so much of relying on your team, you know, and I'm sure it's hard to go from you and Karen doing everything to coming to Chatham and having to delegate a lot of tasks. And and a lot of it is, I'm sure you're like, okay, yeah, I definitely want to offload the things I didn't like, but then you also have to let go of things that you love doing, and that can be tough. I had this thing.
SPEAKER_02Not touching LA. That's my that was my thing. I love just being able to put in some music and rock out and do my thing, but I'm still very hands-off but hands-on on election night. It's me and Gavin right now in the server room on election night. I let him upload the cards, but I'm overseeing it and uploading or overseeing them, push the absentees. So it is hard for me because I'm such a control freak. Um, be so hands-on when I've or be hands-off since I've been so hands-on for so long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And I think that having, like I said, having that understanding helps so much because it's an extra set of eyes and that extra set of checks, and that just makes sure that the results you're uploading or the machines you're testing, you know, the voters in Chatham can rest assured that everything was double-checked and that you know what you're doing. And that's really reassuring, I think.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. That's why I was on the first RLA here. We were 100% spot on.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I know the risk limiting audits, I think it it the the sound of it, especially going to a larger county, and it can sound daunting, especially, you know, you never know how big your batches are going to be that they pull. And so you kind of are waiting until the dice are rolled and then you get your batches and you set up. But, you know, we know that from the beginning of the process, because of logic and accuracy testing, which we do before voting starts, where we touch every single piece of voting equipment and we make sure that, you know, the screen when you touch this election, that that's what's being marked, that that's what's being printed, that that's what's being tabulated. And so I think that we know and we trust that process that the risk limiting audit is just kind of our cherry on top to show, like, look what we did. We know that this was right. And that can be really satisfying, I think.
SPEAKER_02Yes, exactly. Because my last um, I guess it we wouldn't call it a risk limit, but my big thing like that was in 2020 in Henry County when we had a recount three times. So yeah, I I kind of had PSTD coming to the first RLA, even though I knew okay, we're gonna have a batch on this side and a batch on this side. Yep. But our batches are not as small as Butts County. And so and now we have to do two races. So I'm like, oh my god, we're gonna be here all day. And it was luckily it was only four hours for this one, but primaries are a little bit smaller than the general. So we'll see about general.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it'll be interesting. And that's another opportunity for your voters to come and observe and see how it's done. You know, your professionals, whether it's your poll workers or your office staff that are doing that auditing process, they can observe it and you can answer their questions, explain how it works. And I think that that's a really great opportunity for people who have questions, especially in Georgia, you know, about the QR codes. But in all states, most states. I think now Alabama has passed a law requiring risk-limiting audits. So I think most or all states now do them. So I encourage our listeners to reach out to your local election office and ask what kind of audit you do, how you can observe, because they think it's a really great experience to kind of see after the election, you know, we're not done election night. We still do all of this other work to make sure our results were accurate.
SPEAKER_02Right. And I'm actually very, very fortunate. Uh Chatham County has an audit department. So they actually will come in and help us there as our nonpartisan. So they'll come in as our nonpartisan for the audit process. And those audit team, uh the audit department, they are spot on and make sure every single one counts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. I love having that where you can work with your county partners to bring in people that are experts in that field. I think that's an awesome thing that you guys do. I love it. Well, congratulations are in order because you are graduating from the Certified Election and Registration Administrator Program, also known as SARA, this summer. I'm so excited for it.
SPEAKER_02I'm going to finish my project today, my last project.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it. And we'll be celebrating you in Kansas City at graduation. Um, this is some program I care deeply about. I went to Auburn, I did the election administration program. I know all the professors that do the SARA classes really well. And I would love for you to tell our listeners about what the program is and why it's been valuable. To you?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So this was brought to me uh gosh several conferences ago about a SIRA program, and I've always wanted to try it. And finally was able to get started. And it's great to hear other jurisdictions all over the country that has the same problems and the same sizes, the challenges and how, or I'm having this challenge, that jurisdiction all the way in California had the same problem. This is what they did. And then, or they'll call me and be like, hey, our state doesn't do a risk limit audit. Can I come to your office and watch your risk limit audit? Absolutely. Come on. And making those connections, I'm actually a couple of me and my staff members are going to go up to um North Carolina to Durham to go see their amazing facility. And so because we want to prepare our staff to prepare a plan for if we need to get to move to one building of what that should look like. And I just fell in love when I went to the search class up there with their building. So it's also taught me better communications. Um, a lot of history I didn't know, especially when we had to do the Alabama test. That was interesting. And I've actually took that back to my Butts County board because that's when I took that class, and they all failed that test, the literacy test to vote. So I was like, I'm pulling all your registrations. Yeah. But it's good, it's just they're good friends. Everybody that I've had in all my classes have been the same. Um, I'm glad to see more Georgia people turn out than uh because I think we're right up there with Texas people of how many people are participating. So I know I've got two staff members that will be joining us. Well, one will be joining us July 1st, and I think later on the year I'll have another one join.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Yeah, I I love this Sierra program. It's it's really, like you said, extensive. So there's the, I believe it's 12 core courses you have to take before you can graduate. And they range from topics like early election history to modern election history to constitutional and election law, um, budgeting, management, communications, I mean, all really different topics that affect election officials every day. And you get to go to these classes and sit and hear from a professor and they teach the material, which is great. And I love them, like I said. But what I think is really the meat and potatoes of the Sarah courses is like you said, connecting with other election officials from all over the country, talking about issues you have, hearing about ways that maybe they solved those problems and just that knowledge share. And that's one thing I love about election administrators is that we are always willing to help someone else out, to answer questions, to have them come visit, to give a tour, because we know that we're gonna have the same thing. We always say, you know, I'm just gonna copy what they did and they'll say, Great, here you go. You know, there's no hard feeling. No, exactly. And I love that election officials care so deeply about their job to invest and to take these courses because it's a lot of time. It takes years to get these courses done. And I think it's it's something I I want our listeners to know that election officials really take their job so seriously that they're going out on their own time and getting professional certifications and you're doing projects and homework and readings. I mean, these are really high-level classes that you have to take. And and I think it's amazing, like you said, that we're getting more and more election officials involved in the certification process.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I've even gotten closer to a lot of my Georgia Pete's too, you know, that we only see once a year at the conferences. You know, that's how I got so close with you and Liberty County and Paulding County. So it's it's good to see them outside of our normal election stuff and see them on that kind of level too. And we're both learning and taking it back to our counties.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I love it. Um, thanks for sharing that. I think it's it's so fun. I think, you know, like I said, our listeners probably don't realize all the extra things that election officials do outside of, I would say, eight to five, but you and I know it's much more hours than that. And so I'm glad that you're able to share about what that experience has been like for you. Okay, so our final question: what is the one thing you would like for voters to remember as we are in the middle of a very busy election year?
SPEAKER_02If you have questions, go straight to the source. Go to your county's website, go to your county, um, go to the Secretary of State's website, don't go off of the news stations. If you're not sure who to vote for, print off of your sample ballot. Mark them, you can bring in that cheat sheet. Do not bring your phone. Um, that is not allowed. So if you need, if you don't have a printer, go to your local elections office, they'll print you one off. Um, talk to the candidates. We know no information. We only qualify the local candidates, the state does the state candidates. We can't tell you here's their phone number, what their backgrounds are. Do the Google researches, contact both of your local parties. Be well educated because when you're not, that takes the longest time at the line of the BMDs or the voting machines, is not being educated. Especially this past election, we had um the straw questions, what I call them, the party questions. Then in November, you're gonna have amendments and referendums. So get to know that first. That's gonna move your lines quicker.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I love it. I think it's so important you highlight, you know, reaching out to your local election officials. In Georgia, like you said, you can't have your phone in the voting booth. And a lot of times voters are looking at that sample ballot for the first time outside the voting room and they're trying to do their research and they can't bring their phone in. And every state is different. In Virginia, you could have your phone in the voting booth, but you couldn't, you know, you could take a picture of your ballot. In some states, you can't take a picture of your ballot. So make sure you call your election office, figure out what you can have, what can't you have, what can you wear, what can you not wear if you plan on wearing political attire. And make sure, like you said, you're prepared, you've done your research. There are a lot of great nonpartisan information sources out there. When I use this ballotready.org, they do a great job of gathering all the information from the candidates. Cause, like you said, we don't ask the candidates questions. We don't have candidate questionnaires available. We don't have their stances on issues available. That's not what we do. I always say when I was in election administration, my job is to administer and grade tests. That's all I do. I don't pick the people on the tests, I just administer it and then I grade it and I post the results, and that's it. And I think sometimes that that is not something maybe voters are as familiar with. Or if they move to a different state, it could be really different from where they came from. So talk to your local election office, find out how it works for you in your county or your city. Love it. Awesome. Well, thank you, Brooke, for joining me today. Always great to chat with you, girl, and for sharing your insights with our listeners and listeners. Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next week with another episode talking with more keepers of our republic.
SPEAKER_00If you like this episode, please share it on social media and tell your friends. It's the best way for folks to find out about us. I hope you'll agree that our guest is indeed a keeper of the republic. If you want to learn more about how you can help keep our republic, stop on over to our website, keep ourrepublic.org.