Henry County has a new location for its Elections and Voter Registration Office.

A ribbon-cutting February 7 included state and local officials who gathered at the new facility, located at 1550 South Zack Hinton Parkway in McDonough just south of Racetrack Road. A replacement for a building that officials said was undersized and inadequate to meet the demands of a rapidly growing county, it is already fully operational with staff on hand who are ready to serve all residents with voting and registration questions and needs.

“I want to thank everyone for coming out today,” said Henry County Board of Commissioners Chair Carlotta Harrell at the event. “We are so happy to celebrate the opening of this new building. It was a journey but we got here. Our voters now have a place that they can come to and have all their needs met.”

Ameika Pitts, the county’s director of elections and voter registration, was quite grateful to see the opening of a new facility on behalf of her own staff as well as the community at large.

“I was told by a lot of people that this wouldn’t happen,” said Pitts. “But we have a board and a county government that supports us. And when this location came on the market, they acted. I couldn’t be more excited. We now have the space to do an even more outstanding job for the people of Henry.”

Identifying and renovating the building was a lengthy process, according to officials.

“This building had been vacant for over a year when we purchased it. We then put the renovation work out to bid but felt that we could handle most of it in house. And we did it at a little more than half of the price quoted,” said Hutch Purvis, the county’s facilities maintenance director. “We’re lucky we have 13 amazing tradesmen on staff here. Not only did we renovate 16,000 square feet to get this building ready, but we did so while continuing to process 4,000 work orders a day and tending 1.5 million square feet of space we service elsewhere. It was a team effort.”

Some additional election-related resources could be arriving soon courtesy of the Georgia General Assembly. That was reported by state Rep. El-Mahdi Holly, who informed those at the ribbon-cutting of the passage of House Bill 18, which includes $4.9 million in provisions for replacement batteries for voting machines, the implementation of a secure ballot image capture library, and to improve the Georgia Registered Voter Information System. That bill is now moving to the Senate.

“On behalf of the entire Henry County delegation to the General Assembly, I want you to know that we are here with you,” said Holly. “Voting is one thing that unites us all. Our right to vote is sacred and something that we will continue working to protect.”