Absentee ballots being mailed to EMC members this week

Members of Grady Electric Membership Corporation should be on the lookout for absentee ballots to be mailed to the membership on or immediately after Sept. 29.
The ballots are being mailed to members by Survey & Ballot Systems Inc., of Eden Prairie, MN, which has been contracted by the EMC to conduct the absentee balloting.
SBS will mail, receive, validate and tabulate all absentee ballots cast in advance of the annual meeting, according to Grady EMC officials.
Included in the packet to be mailed with the absentee ballots are voting instructions, preprinted envelopes with SBS return address, candidate biographies and photos if provided.
Members must return their absentee ballots to SBS and SBS will not accept ballots received after Oct. 16, 2017.
A locked and sealed container will be placed at the EMC headquarters to receive ballots that may be inadvertently mailed or hand-delivered to the EMC.
According to EMC officials, the only person with a key to the lock box will be the chairman of the EMC elections committee.
If an EMC member fails to receive, discards or misplaces his or her ballot they may receive a replacement ballot and replacement envelope by contacting SBS directly prior to Oct. 10. Any requests for replacement mail ballots after Oct. 10 will be denied, but members can attend the annual meeting on Oct. 20 and cast their ballot in person.
No later than 4 p.m. on Oct. 19, SBS will return all ballots, certified initial results, and an electronic file of all members who have cast a ballot identified as the voter list.
Members attending the annual meeting who are listed on the voters list will not be permitted to cast a ballot on Oct. 20 since they are presumed to have already voted absentee. Only members whose names are included on the member list and not the voter list will be allowed to cast ballots on the day of the annual meeting.
Although only directors in Districts 3 and 6 are up for election this year, all members are allowed to vote for every director position regardless of residency. In other words, the election of directors is conducted sytem-wide.
The candidates certified and qualified for District 3 are incumbent Lamar Carlton and challengers B. Hetsell Donaldson Jr., and Richard R. “Ricky” Smith. The candidates certified and qualified for District 6 are incumbent Robert E. Lee and challenger Gordon Clyatt.
The 79th annual meeting of Grady EMC will be held on Friday, Oct. 20 at Family Worship Center, 1760 U.S. 84. Registration begins at 8 a.m. and the meeting is tentatively scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.