It Was Not Houston County’s Fault - Beth Chapman DO NOT Blame Houston County Clerk's Office

Rickey Stokes

Viewed: 5776

Posted by: RStokes
Date: Oct 20 2012 5:01 PM

HUOSTON COUNTY:    A press release from the Alabama Secretary of State Office announced they had extended overseas military voting for 10 days. The Secretaryf State blamed it on some counties failing to submit the names by the deadline.

One county Chapman named was Houston County.

Houston County Circuit Court Clerk Carla Woodall hit the roof! A hard task from the first floor of the courthouse through floor floors!

Circuit Clerk Carla Woodall is the Absentee Voting Manager for Houston County. A task she takes very serious. Woodall has a fourth floor office set up for absentee voting. She is seen daily in that office with a hands on management of the absentee voting.

Carla and her staff worked hard and met the deadline. All of their information was in the computer, checked and douuble checked.

The problem was on the Montgomery end of the system and not the Houston County side of the system. The data was entered and sent as required. The system the state uses only opens the "computer acceptance gateway" after a certian date. When it was open Woodall got a confirmation email the information was sent and received properly.

On Friday I caught Woodall on the phone with the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office over the issue. Woodall was upset that her office was portrayed as a cause of the delay when that was flat out untrue.

Woodall manages the paperwork flow of the court system. In addition her office manages the absentee voting. That management is not just during voting times, but maintaining the military lists afterwards in order to make sure that all overseas military get to cast their vote.

From Small Claims, District Criminal, Circuit Criminal, Circuit Civil, Family Relations, Juvenie and all paperwork that flows throught the court system in Houston County, every document to and from a court, Woodall’s ladies are responsible for. The amount of paperwork flow is tremendous through their office. They do a good job.

A very UNSCIENTIFIC research of new open in Houston County Court system this year through Carla Woodall’s office is 11,650. Each case requires multiple steps and activities. This count is ONLY 2012 cases and does not include existing cases.

A review of the September 2012 Criminal Court trial docket, cases filed  in 2007, 2011, 2012, 2010. And just that one week of criminal jury trials, the Houston County Circuit Clerk’s Office had 224 cases to get the files prepared for trial and processed after the trial.

So Beth Chapman, DO NOT blame the Houston County Clerk’s Office for your mess up and extension.

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