East Cobb Politics & Elections

Cobb Elections adds early voting locations for Senate runoffs

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Editor's Note voting and citizenship

Cobb Elections said Wednesday it is adding locations for early voting for the U.S. Senate runoffs and making some other changes as voters can cast their ballots in person as early as Monday.

The Art Place-Mountain View in East Cobb and the Smyrna Community Center are being added as early voting locations during the third week of early voting (Dec. 28-31). Another early voting location, the Ward Recreation Center in Powder Springs, will be moved to the Ron Anderson Community Center, also in Powder Springs.

County spokesman Ross Cavitt said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon that Cobb Elections “will quickly start training poll managers to handle the additional locations.”

Cobb Elections had set up five early voting locations for the runoffs, including the East Cobb Government Service Center, after having 11 sites ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

The changes come after voting access groups demanded that Cobb open more early voting locations, especially in African-American and Hispanic communities.

On Wednesday morning, before Cobb announced the additions, Nsé Ufot, Chief Executive Officer of The New Georgia Project, issued a statement saying that Cobb’s smaller number of early voting locations for the runoffs “is an affront to voters of color, plain and simple. It risks disenfranchising voters of color living in neighborhoods with limited to no public transit.”

“And as cases of COVID-19 rise across the state, this decision makes it more difficult for voters to cast their ballot safely.”

During the general election early voting period, Cobb also added locations after heavy turnout, going from nine to 11 sites.

Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler said in the county statement that staffing issues were the reason for fewer runoff early voting sites. Staffers have been working long hours doing recounts and some were reluctant to work over the holidays.

“Between COVID, the workload, and the holidays, we have simply run out of people,” Eveler said. “Many workers told us they spent three weeks working 14- or 15-hour days and they will not do that again. We simply don’t have time to bring in and train up more workers to staff the number of locations we had for November.”

Both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate races are on the ballot for the Jan. 5 runoffs. Republican Sen. David Perdue edged Democrat Jon Ossoff in the general election but couldn’t get a majority.

Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler finished second in a jungle primary to Democrat Raphael Warnock in a special election to fill the remaining two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.

Party control of the U.S. Senate also is on the line in the runoffs, which have drawn heightened national media attention and campaign contributions.

The runoffs also come after a bruising presidential recount process in Georgia. Democrat Joe Biden was recertified as the winner of the state’s 16 electoral votes, although supporters of Republican President Donald Trump continue to claim election fraud.

Perdue and Loeffler are supporting lawsuits filed by the Texas Attorney General challenging election results in several states, including Georgia, before the Electoral College is slated to meet on Monday.

Also on the Georgia ballot is a runoff for a seat on the Public Service Commission between Republican incumbent Bubba McDonald and Democrat Daniel Blackman.

You can apply for an absentee ballot at the Georgia Secretary of State’s website.

The county said all 16 absentee ballot drop boxes that were used for the general election will be open for the runoffs. They include the East Cobb Government Service Center, Mountain View Regional Library, Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center and Gritters Library in East Cobb.

For early voting locations and hours click here.

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Georgia elections recertified after presidential lawsuit dismissed

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Georgia recount presidential race, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

The latest lawsuit filed in Georgia over disputed presidential election results has been dismissed by a federal judge.

On Monday Judge Timothy Batten of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta ruled that the case lacked standing, among other issues.

His ruling came during a Monday morning hearing. The so-called “Kraken” lawsuit, filed by Sidney Powell, a lawyer formerly associated with President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, claimed election fraud and sought to overturn the presidential results.

Batten ruled that the matter should be for the state courts and said that “the plaintiffs essentially asked the court for perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election.”

More here from GPB; later on Monday Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recertified the victory in Georgia of Democratic former vice president Joe Biden after a machine recount.

“Today is an important day for election integrity in Georgia and across the country,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “The claims in the Kraken lawsuit prove to be as mythological as the creature for which they’re named. Georgians can now move forward knowing that their votes, and only their legal votes, were counted accurately, fairly, and reliably.”

It’s the third time nearly 5 million Georgia votes for president have been counted. The initial certified results showed Biden won by around 12,000 votes statewide, and a hand recount ordered by Raffensperger slimmed that lead to around 10,000.

Officially Biden’s winning margin statewide was 11,779 votes, following the machine recount. Biden had 2,473,633 votes and Trump received 2,461,854 votes. Jo Jorgenson, the Libertarian Party nominee, got 62,229 votes.

Biden won Cobb County with 56 percent of the vote; only a few dozen votes changed during the recount, in Biden’s favor. Most East Cobb precincts favored Trump.

The Trump campaign requested a recount that was allowed since the margin was 0.5 percent or less, but the official recount didn’t differ all that much from the original results.

Powell, the Trump campaign and Lin Wood, an Atlanta libel attorney best known for representing former Atlanta Olympic bombing suspect Richard Jewell, have claimed widespread fraud in the presidential election.

But those claims have all been rejected in court, for failure to provide evidence. The Trump campaign also has wanted Georgia’s 16 Democratic electors to be dismissed and has demanded Gov. Brian Kemp call a special legislative session to replace them with Republicans.

The Electoral College will meet on Dec. 14; Kemp declined to intervene, saying it violates state law for the General Assembly to name electors. That, he said, is the duty of the governor once the results are certified by the Secretary of State.

Raffensperger has come under fire from Trump and Republican U.S. Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who demanded he resign. They’re both in Jan. 5 runoffs that could determine party control of the Senate.

While Trump campaigned with Loeffler and Perdue in Valdosta over the weekend, Kemp did not appear with them. Trump, who has refused to concede, said he was embarrassed to have endorsed Kemp in his 2018 race for governor.

As the official recount wound down last week, Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia elections official, slammed Trump for not denouncing death threats made against Raffensperger and his wife and a 20-year-old elections contractor in Gwinnett County.

Sterling reiterated his concerns on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, saying Trump’s comments amount to disinformation: “They are stoking anger and fear among his supporters and, hell, I voted for him.”

Sterling, like Raffensperger, is a Republican who has supported Trump. In a piece for The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Raffensperger said that Trump was using the “same playbook” as Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who lost to Kemp in 2018 but never conceded:

“Many media outlets have rightly highlighted that the Trump campaign has provided precious little proof of its voter-fraud allegations,” Raffensperger wrote. “Yet for two years, few asked the same of Stacey Abrams. Through all this, confidence in the integrity of American elections suffered.”

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Cobb Board of Elections to hold post-recount meeting Thursday

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Gabriel Sterling
Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia elections official, lashed out over death threats and other forms of intimidation he said are being aimed at elections workers during the state’s recount.

Cobb County Government has sent out word that the Cobb Board of Elections is meeting Thursday at 4 p.m. “in anticipation they will have to recertify the results of the November 3rd election.”

This will be a virtual meeting due to COVID-19 and you can watch on the Cobb Government YouTube Channel.

On Wednesday Cobb Elections staffers were expected to finish a machine recount of the presidential voting.

That work has been taking place at Jim Miller Park, site of a previous hand recount ordered by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Raffensperger gave county elections offices until Wednesday to complete the machine recount.

That process—which is being done on eight scanners in Cobb County—comes at the request of the campaign of President Donald Trump.

He finished 0.2 percent and less than 13,000 votes behind Joe Biden in Georgia after election-night and absentee voting was complete, and after the hand recount.

In Georgia recounts are allowed if a losing candidate comes within 0.5 percent or less.

Nearly 5 million votes for president were cast in Georgia and around 400,000 in Cobb, where Biden won with 56 percent of the vote. Most East Cobb precincts favored Trump.

The recount is finishing up amid what a top Georgia elections official said is intimidation and continuing threats of violence against elections workers from the pro-Trump camp.

Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems implementation manager for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, said Tuesday he’s among those who’ve received threats, as has Raffensperger and his wife, who’s gotten “sexualized texts” with threatening messages.

“It has all gone too far,” said Sterling, who like Raffensperger is a Republican. “Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed.”

In a press conference at the Georgia Capitol, Sterling was enraged describing a threatening Twitter thread aimed at a 20-year-old elections contractor in Gwinnett County that includes “a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on batches.”

The contractor, Sterling said, “was just trying to do his job” and now there’s a “noose with a name on it . . . This kid just took a job, and it’s just wrong. . . . I cannot begin to explain the level of anger I have.”

Cobb County spokesman Ross Cavitt said he doesn’t know of any threats directed at Cobb Elections, but said the county “did increase police presence at the start of the recounts because of concerns expressed by some elections workers.”

Sterling directed further comments at Trump, who has not conceded to Biden, but who Tweeted derogatory comments over the weekend about Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom the president said he was “ashamed” to have endorsed.

“It has to stop. Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up. And if you take a position of leadership, show some.”

Both of Georgia’s Republican U.S. Senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, have called on Raffensperger to resign as they face Jan. 5 runoffs that could determine party control of the Senate.

Among those most vocal in claiming election fraud against Trump in Georgia is Atlanta attorney Lin Wood.

Over the last two weeks he’s posted videos on his Twitter feed claiming that ballots in Cobb County were being shredded, which county elections officials have said is not true.

On Wednesday, Wood was appearing at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Alpharetta.

Sterling said while it’s one thing to demand a fair counting of the ballots, the threats have gone too far. Again directing his comments at Trump, he said “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence

“It’s time to look forward,” Sterling said. “There’s not a path. Be the better man here.”

You can watch his full remarks by clicking here.

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Cobb Elections extends hours to complete presidential recount

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Cobb Elections said Thursday that its staffers will be working longer hours next week to complete the presidential recount.Cobb election results certified

According to a message put out by Cobb County Government, those hours will be from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and from 8 a.m. to as much time is needed on Wednesday to complete the recount.

Wednesday is the deadline given to all Georgia counties to complete the recount. Nearly 400,000 Cobb County ballots are being recounted on eight scanners, according to the county, and nearly 5 million Georgia ballots are being recounted across the state.

No recounting is being done on Friday. The recount, which started on Tuesday, is taking place in Cobb at Jim Miller Park (2245 Calloway Road), and the public is invited to observe.

The recount was requested by the campaign of President Donald Trump after a hand recount slightly reduced Democratic former vice president Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia to less than 13,000 votes.

Biden has 49.51 percent of the vote compared to 49.25 percent for Trump, which falls within the 0.5 percent threshold for a recount in Georgia.

Biden won more than 56 percent of the vote in Cobb County.

Another lawsuit was filed in Georgia on Wednesday by Trump supporters alleging voter fraud, and naming two of the state’s top Republican leaders—Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The lawsuit also seeks to dismiss the Georgia election results. The Cobb County Courier reported Friday that the Cobb County Republican Committee voted to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff, and quoted county GOP chairman Jason Shepherd as saying that party leaders “believe that there are issues in this election which can only be sorted out in a court of law. An issue as important as the integrity of a Presidential election deserves to have evidence heard in a court of law, not a court of public opinion.”

Over the past week, Cobb Elections has been accused by Trump supporters of shredding ballots. Elections director Janine Eveler said last week that documents “not relevant” to the election were shredded after the hand count, but no ballots.

On Monday, a video posted on social media claimed ballots were being shredded at the Cobb Elections headquarters, but the county said the shredding was routine and involved materials from the Cobb Tax Commissioner’s Office.

In both instances the allegations were posted on Twitter by Lin Wood, an Atlanta attorney and Trump supporter who has repeatedly claimed that Trump won the presidential race by a landslide.

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Cobb: Government shredding didn’t include Elections Office

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For the second time in a week, Cobb County Government is saying that shredding activities at one of its facilities didn’t involve ballots.Cobb County Government logo

According to a message sent out Tuesday, nothing from the Cobb Elections Office was shredded at all in the latest allegations.

County spokesman Ross Cavitt said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon that a video was being posted on social media that:

“Purportedly shows a shredding company at the building housing the main office for Cobb Elections on Whitlock Avenue in Marietta. This building houses many other Cobb County governmental offices, and the document disposal company was at the building as part of a regularly-scheduled visit to the Cobb Tax Commissioner’s office. No items from Cobb Elections were involved.”

Cavitt didn’t say who posted the video, but it came from Lin Wood, a prominent Atlanta attorney who’s filed a lawsuit for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, charging voter fraud.

Democratic former vice president Joe Biden leads in Georgia by less than 13,000 votes as a machine recount of the presidential voting got underway Tuesday.

Cobb Elections workers were conducting that recount at Jim Miller Park, several miles away from the main office, as they did during a hand recount that was completed last week. All elections materials related to the second recount, including ballots, are being stored there.

On Friday, Wood posted on his Twitter account an allegation that election documents were possibly being destroyed in Cobb. County elections director Janine Eveler responded by saying that only documents that were “not relevant” to the election were shredded after the hand recount was done.

Wood posted a few more times Tuesday on his Twitter account, which has more than 592,000 followers. Knox is identified several times as a “Georgia Patriot,” but she responded to Wood to say that the videos were shot by someone else who wished to remain anonymous.

Knox is a business development executive based in East Cobb.

In another Tweet, Wood wrote that “Biden is a crook. Cabala Harris is a Communist Sympathizer. This was NEVER about an election. It is part of an attempt to take over control of our country. I would NEVER incite violence. I urge ALL to pray.”

Biden won more than 56 percent of the vote in Cobb County.

Wood also Tweeted Tuesday that Sidney Powell, an attorney dismissed by the Trump campaign over the weekend, will be filing an election lawsuit in Georgia Wednesday.

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Official Georgia machine recount begins in presidential race

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Cobb presidential hand recount
A hand recount finished last week cut Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia to just under 13,000 votes.

An automatic recount of votes in the presidential race in Georgia began on Tuesday, the third such tabulation in a razor-close battle.

Cobb Elections workers are working from 9-5 Tuesday and Wednesday and the same hours next Monday and Tuesday, and from 9 a.m. until finishing next Wednesday, Dec. 2.

That’s the deadline set by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to elections offices across the state.

A hand recount finished on Friday had Democratic former vice president Joe Biden with a 12,670-vote lead over Republican President Donald Trump in Georgia.

Biden has 49.51 percent of the vote compared to 49.25 percent for Trump, which falls within the 0.5 percent threshold for a recount in Georgia.

Trump has not conceded, three weeks after the election, as his campaign is filing challenges in other states, including Pennsylvania, where he was trailing Biden by 150,000 votes.

Adding to the drama over the weekend were charged remarks by Sidney Powell, an attorney on Trump’s legal team who said she would “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” voter fraud lawsuit.

The Trump campaign quickly cut ties with Powell.

The machine recount will be done by machine and the results will become official. Georgia’s elections board certified all election results last Thursday, but the Trump campaign asked for the formal recount after the hand count was finished.

That was the first time Georgia has done a hand recount. Like that process, the machine recount will add up nearly 5 million votes cast by Georgians in the presidential race.

The public is invited to observe the Cobb Elections recount, which like the hand recount is taking place at Jim Miller Park (2245 Calloway Road, Marietta).

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East Cobb voters stick with Trump but Biden wins precincts

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East Cobb voters Trump Biden
Joe Biden won most of the precincts (in green) and 56 percent of the presidential vote in Cobb County against Donald Trump. For more details, click here.

After Georgia certified election results Friday that included a win for Joe Biden in the presidential race, Donald Trump’s campaign has asked for an official recount.

That comes after a hand recount across the state upheld a slender advantage for Biden, of less than 13,000 votes.

Those figures didn’t change much in Cobb County, which for the second presidential election in a row was won by a Democrat.

Joe Biden won 56 percent of the vote in Cobb and most of the precincts, as indicated in green in the Georgia Secretary of State’s map above.

Trump won most of the precincts in East Cobb, but Biden won 13 of those 48 precincts and outperformed Hillary Clinton in some areas as well as countywide.

Biden received 221,846 votes in Cobb to 165,459 for Trump. In 2016, Clinton got 160,121 votes to 152,912 for Trump to become the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win the county.

Cobb Democrats have gained more ground since then. They won all countywide races they contested this year, including Cobb Commission Chair, Sheriff, District Attorney and Superior Court Clerk.

In January, an all-female and a Democratic-majority Cobb Board of Commissioners will take office, headed by current commissioner Lisa Cupid, the first Democratic chair since 1984.

Like other metro Atlanta suburban areas, Cobb was coveted political territory for Democrats this year, as illustrated by The New York Times in a precinct shift analysis last week.

East Cobb voters Trump Biden
Despite support from East Cobb voters, Republicans lost in countywide races, and Democratic candidates won in presidential, U.S. Senate and Congressional races. (ECN photo)

East Cobb Republican legislative incumbents were re-elected, but a few of those races were close, as was Cobb Board of Education Post 5, where GOP incumbent David Banks held on for a fourth term.

Last week Cobb Elections issued its “Statement of Votes Cast” report, which is a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of all the election results (you can read through it here). For reference here are the 2016 precinct results.

A table of the presidential vote in East Cobb precincts in 2020 includes an asterisk next to the precinct-winning total; the Bells Ferry 2 precinct ended in a tie (indicated in beige on the map).

Trump Biden Turnout %
Addison 930 990* 80.52
Bells Ferry 2 1127 (tie) 1127 (tie) 74.45
Bells Ferry 3 768 871* 69.62
Blackwell 908 1113* 76.98
Chattahoochee 986 2860* 66.34
Chestnut Ridge 1446* 1215 86.08
Davis 857* 807 81.84
Dickerson 1209* 1149 85.54
Dodgen 921* 810 85.19
East Piedmont 782 1077* 72.33
Eastside 1 1325* 1200 85.33
Eastside 2 1698* 1601 83.48
Elizabeth 2 1022* 864 79.01
Elizabeth 3 1226* 1014 82.80
Elizabeth 4 715 1077* 69.35
Elizabeth 5 1103 1168* 80.48
Fullers Park 1436* 1374 83.40
Garrison Mill 1211* 1105 82.42
Gritters 1578* 1359 75.20
Hightower 1858* 1640 84.47
Kell 853* 690 79.36
Lassiter 1613* 1316 82.84
Mabry 833* 538 85.27
McCleskey 810* 609 84.04
Marietta 6A 374 1184* 59.69
Marietta 6B 970 1283* 79.90
Mt. Bethel 1 1760* 1626 84.56
Mt. Bethel 3 1299 1344* 82.00
Mt. Bethel 4 1305* 1094 82.79
Murdock 1722* 1598 84.11
Nicholson 969* 843 76.05
Pope 1349* 1173 82.33
Post Oak 1680* 1289 82.79
Powers Ferry 1213 1287* 73.698
Rocky Mount 1441* 1234 80.88
Roswell 1 2387* 2141 86.01
Roswell 2 1545* 1518 85.03
Sandy Plains 1117 1192* 81.25
Sewell Mill 1 1334 1481* 82.22
Sewell Mill 3 1249 1859* 67.20
Shallowford Falls 1487* 1294 84.62
Simpson 738* 756 81.85
Sope Creek 1 970* 835 85.76
Sope Creek 2 1632 1963* 78.28
Sope Creek 3 1213* 1089 80.91
Terrell Mill 1030 2477* 61.97
Timber Ridge 1025* 1016 85.42
Willeo 1270* 1079 85.19

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Cobb Elections explains post-recount shredding activities

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Cobb Absentee Ballot Envelope
Cobb Elections Director Janine Eveler said white privacy envelopes were among the items shredded Friday, but no ballots of any kind were destroyed.

After wrapping up a hand recount of votes in the presidential race, the Cobb Board of Elections and Registrations on Friday responded to social media postings about shredding activities near its recount location at Jim Miller Park.

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  • UPDATED Tuesday, Nov. 24: Cobb government says the social media posting of another video alleging the shredding of ballots was in fact part of routine shredding activities for materials from the Cobb Tax Commissioner’s Office. A county spokesman said no documents from the Cobb Elections Office were shredded.

In a release issued through Cobb County Government spokesman Ross Cavitt, Cobb Elections said the items that were being shredded were mailing labels, completed and “checked off” reports, sticky notes and other papers and documents.

Voters were mailed two envelopes as part of their absentee ballot package. One was a “white privacy envelope” that contained the actual absentee ballot. The privacy envelope was then placed in a larger mailing envelope that contained the voter’s signature.

The privacy envelopes were among the items that were also shredded—after the election was certified—but not the mailing envelopes with the signatures.

None of the shredded materials were ballots, according to the statement, which quotes Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler:

“None of these items are relevant to the election or the re-tally. Everything of consequence, including the ballots, absentee ballot applications with signatures, and anything else used in the count or re-tally remains on file. After an out-of-context video was shared on social media we contacted state officials to reassure them this was a routine clean-up operation and they could inspect our stored materials if they wish.”

Lin Wood, an Atlanta attorney who’s filed a lawsuit for the Trump campaign contesting the Georgia presidential results, posted several times Friday on his Twitter account with videos shot at the park by others.

In a post published at 3:27 p.m., he wrote:

The Cobb Elections release was issued about 10 minutes later, but Wood did not respond to that denial. His Tweets after that were focused on Kyle Rittenhouse, a Wisconsin teenager accused of killing two protesters in Kenosha and who was released on $2 million bail.

After absentee and other final ballots had been initially counted, Democratic former vice president Joe Biden had a lead of 14,116 votes over Trump.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ordered a hand recount—something that hadn’t been done in the state before—and after that was complete, the results indicated that Biden’s lead was 12,670 votes.

On Friday, the Georgia board of elections certified all the election results, including the presidential race, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on the certification.

There were several thousand uncounted ballots found during the recounts in four counties (Cobb was not among them), including more than 2,000 in Floyd County, where the elections supervisor was fired.

“The vast majority of local elections officials did their job well,” Kemp said, citing circumstances related to COVID-19 that led to unprecedented absentee balloting.

He urged legislators to make changes, including a voter ID requirement for absentee ballots.

The Trump campaign has until the end of Tuesday to request a computerized recount, which would serve as the official vote tally.

Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are slated to go to Biden, the first Democrat to win the state in the presidential race since Bill Clinton in 1992.

The official tally now stands at Biden with 2,474,507 votes (49.51 percent) to 2,461,837 for Trump (49.25 percent).

Libertarian Jo Jorgensen received 62,138 votes, or 1.24 percent.

Raffensperger has been under fire since Georgia’s presidential vote-counting swung from Trump, who held a 370,000-vote lead on election night, to the slender Biden lead following the absentee counting.

Georgia’s U.S. Senators, Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, demanded his resignation, as the Trump campaign alleged voter fraud in Georgia and several other states that were close—and that all eventually went to Biden.

On Friday, Raffensperger said that even though he’s a Republican and Trump supporter, “the numbers don’t lie” and he has the duty to certify the results.

“The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign,” he said.

In Cobb, Biden got 56 percent of the vote.

Cobb Elections officials will be working at Jim Miller Park through the Jan. 5 runoff for both U.S. Senate seats from Georgia as a well as a runoff for the Georgia Public Service Commission.

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Cobb election results certified; Biden projected Ga. winner

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Cobb election results certified

As a hand recount of Cobb votes in the presidential race began on Friday, the county’s elections board certified all the other the results from last week’s general election.

By a 5-0 vote, the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration—a five-member appointed body—voted to certify the results of a variety of county, state and federal races as well as local and statewide ballot issues.

In recapping the elections process, Cobb Elections Director Janine Eveler said that “election day went very smoothly” and chalked up much of that to early and absentee voting “that took a lot of the pressure” off of staff and poll workers at 145 precincts.

She said a total of 396,549 ballots were counted in Cobb County—that’s 73.76 percent of the 537,611 registered eligible voters: 174,979 cast ballots in person, and another 148,498 votes were counted via mail/absentee.

The elections board vote came a few hours after Eveler and her staff began the laborious hand recount process in the presidential race. That was ordered on Wednesday by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Democratic former vice president Joe Biden leads in Georgia by 14,116 points and has 49.52 percent of the vote, while Republican president Donald Trump has 49.24 percent of the vote with nearly 5 million votes cast.

In Cobb, Biden got 56 percent of the vote, although most precincts in East Cobb favored Trump.

The Trump campaign has charged voter fraud in a number of states where the voting has been close. In Georgia, Republican U.S. senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have asked for Raffensperger to resign. He said he won’t be doing that, and urged his fellow GOP office-holders to focus on their Jan. 5 runoff campaigns.

On Friday afternoon, several news outlets projected Biden the winner in Georgia. He would be the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to do so. Trump also has been projected to be the winner in North Carolina.

Pennsylvania and Arizona also have been projected for Biden, who by most estimates currently has 290 electoral votes, 20 more than needed.

But only in Georgia is a hand recount taking place. Cobb Elections has brought on 80 people for now to count the presidential vote from those 396,549 ballots.

They’ll have until Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.—the deadline Raffensperger set for all 159 counties to finish—and Eveler said in Cobb the counters will include full-time elections office staffers, poll workers, absentee ballot counters and others.

They got training and final instructions before the recounting began at 9 a.m. The counters are working in 40 teams of two people per table who were randomly assigned and didn’t know one another beforehand.

The state Democratic and Republican parties have assigned designated monitors, and the public is invited to watch as well in an observation area that Eveler said “is quite large, actually.”

The counting is going on from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Jim Miller Park (2245 Callaway Road, Marietta). Late Friday afternoon, the county said 115,000 ballots have been examined thus far, and the work will continue Saturday.

During the elections board meeting, Cobb Democratic Party chairwoman Jackie Bettadapur commended Cobb Elections for its election-day performance, but blasted the hand recount, calling Republicans “sore losers” who were demanding “expensive political theater.”

The county is expected to pick up the tab for the hand recount, and Eveler said it’s possible more shifts will be added to meet the Wednesday deadline. Georgia elections must be certified by next Friday, Nov. 20.

“It will take however many people it takes, and it will cost whatever it’s going to cost, and that’s what we have to do,” she said in the above video produced by the Cobb County Communications Office.

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Cobb to certify election results, start presidential hand recount

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Cobb absentee ballots

The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration will certify elections results Friday as the department starts counting ballots in the presidential race by hand.

The five-member appointed board will meet to certify all but the presidential results at 12 p.m. in a public meeting that will be shown on Cobb County Government’s YouTube channel.

All 159 Georgia counties have been ordered by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to conduct a manual recount in the presidential race.

Democratic former vice president Joe Biden leads in Georgia by 14,116 points and has 49.52 percent of the vote, while Republican president Donald Trump has 49.24 percent of the vote with nearly 5 million votes cast.

That margin falls within the state’s 0.5 percent margin of threshold for an automatic electronic recount, but Raffensperger took the unusual step of ordering the hand recount.

Raffensperger, a Republican, said Wednesday “this helps build confidence” in an elections process that has come under fire from those in his own party, including U.S. Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Earlier this week they called for his resignation. But Raffensperger responded by saying that if there has been any illegal voting it “is unlikely” it would rise to the numbers to change the outcome in Georgia.

Raffensperger has set a deadline of next Wednesday to have the hand count completed. In Cobb, elections staffers will be working overtime to count 396,549 ballots. The cost and source of funding for the recount is unclear for now, although Raffensperger said Wednesday it’s possible the state could reimburse county elections offices.

In Cobb, Biden got 56 percent of the vote, although most precincts in East Cobb favored Trump.

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Georgia to conduct hand recount of presidential voting

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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday there will be a hand recount of around 5 million votes in the presidential race.Georgia recount presidential race, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

At a press conference on the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta, Raffensperger said he’s taking the rare step of ordering a hand recount, as well as an audit of paper ballots and recanvassing, as an “all-in-one process” to ensure an accurate and fair outcome.

“This will help build confidence,” said Raffensperger. “It will be a heavy lift, but we will work with the counties to get this done in time for state certification.”

He said Democratic former vice president Joe Biden has a lead of 14,111 votes over Republican President Donald Trump, whose campaign on Tuesday demanded a hand recount in Georgia.

Trump led by around 370,000 votes statewide at the end of election night. Biden has won 849,679 absentee votes that have been counted since then, compared to 451,240 for Trump.

The updated tallies can be found here; Biden has 49.52 percent of the vote and Trump has 49.24 percent, within the 0.5 percent range for a recount in Georgia. Biden got 56 percent of the vote in Cobb County, although most precincts in East Cobb favored Trump.

A hand recount—which is possible due to a 2019 change in state law requiring paper ballots for recounts—will take place in all 159 counties in Georgia. Raffensperger said 97 counties have certified results.

A hand recount is more expensive and time-consuming than an automatic recount conducted by a scanner, and it’s unclear how much that will cost, who will pay for it and how long it will take.

Georgia has to certify its presidential results by Nov. 20. After the hand count is complete, the losing candidate has two business days to request another recount that under state law must be done electronically.

Georgia has 16 electoral votes—the number of the state’s Congressional delegation of two U.S. Senators and 14 U.S. House members. The electoral college meetings will take place on Dec. 14.

Most of the major news outlets that have called the race for Biden have a current electoral college count of 290 for Biden to 217 for Trump, with Georgia and North Carolina still outstanding.

At least 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency.

“We are committed to counting every legal ballot,” Raffensperger said in a social media post after the press conference. “Georgia voters deserve accurate, secure results. We stand by our numbers.”

The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration is to scheduled to certify its election results Friday. When asked how Cobb Elections will be conducting that hand recount, and how that process may affect certification, Cobb County spokesman Ross Cavitt said he’s talked with Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler, and “they’re still trying to figure it out.”

UPDATE: Cobb County said late Wednesday afternoon that a “risk-limiting” audit of paper ballots will take begin Friday at 8 a.m. at Jim R. Miller Park Event Center. That’s an audit conducted to make sure if votes were tabulated correctly.

Raffensperger, a Republican former legislator, has come under fire for his handling of the presidential voting, but he’s said there has been no evidence of election fraud in Georgia.

Georgia’s Republican U.S. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler—both of whom are in Jan. 5 runoffs—called for his resignation on Monday. But Raffensperger responded by saying that if there has been any illegal voting it “is unlikely” it would rise to the numbers to change the outcome in Georgia.

“My office will continue to investigate each and every instance of illegal voting. Every legal vote will count,” he said at Wednesday’s press conference. “We will continue to enforce the law.”

Georgia is one of a handful of states where presidential voting is still too close to declare a winner, or where votes are still being counted. Biden also leads in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada and Trump leads in North Carolina.

“This race has national significance,” Raffensperger said. “We get that.”

Biden made a victory speech on Saturday, but Trump is refusing to concede. He and his campaign have made allegations of voter fraud in some of those closely-contested states, including Georgia.

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican who finished third behind Raphael Warnock and Loeffler in the U.S. Senate special election primary, said Raffensperger’s call for a hand recount is “a victory for transparency. A victory for election integrity. A victory for the American people.”

He’s leading the Trump recount effort in Georgia, and on social media he’s been frequently calling into doubt the election process here and in other states.

Some state Democrats, including 2018 gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, said Trump is only delaying the inevitable. “He lost, and he knows it,”said Abrams, one of Georgia’s 16 Democratic electors.

On Tuesday, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, a Republican who was defeated in his re-election bid, said he finds it “extraordinary” that “we have people who question the integrity of the voting process—because they lost.”

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Ousted Cobb Commission Chairman pledges ‘transition in grace’

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Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce

A week after he lost his re-election bid to one of his colleagues, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce pledged to assist her as she is set to take office in January.

He also expressed dismay over heated disputes involving the presidential election, both at the national and state levels.

At the end of Tuesday’s Cobb Board of Commissioners regular meeting, Boyce congratulated Commissioner Lisa Cupid, who defeated him with 53 percent of the vote.

He’s a Republican who like other countywide GOP office holders was swept out in a Democratic surge. Cupid, currently the only Democrat on the five-member board, will lead a 3-2 Democratic majority when she takes over.

Noting that more than 300,000 people voted in Cobb County, Boyce said that “I think that’s a great example of true democracy in action.

“I think it’s also important as part of this process that we have a transition in grace. That we acknowledge the voice of the people, we hear them and we move on.”

He said it’s important for Cobb citizens “that this message gets out loud and clear to our national and state leaders that this transition is part of the election process.

“I find it extraordinary that four years ago nobody complained about the results of the election, and four years later we have people who question the integrity of the voting process—because they lost.

“That doesn’t reflect well of leadership. That doesn’t happen in Cobb County. That’s not going to happen in Cobb County as long as I’m the chairman.”

Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are facing Jan. 5 runoffs against Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, and as the close voting in Georgia in the presidential race appears to have set up a recount.

On Monday, Loeffler and Perdue issued a joint statement demanding that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger resign over his handling of the elections.

Without citing any specifics, they accused him of mismanagement and a lack of transparency. Raffensperger responded by saying that if there has been any illegal voting it “is unlikely” it would rise to the numbers to change the outcome in Georgia.

“As a Republican, I am concerned about Republicans keeping the U.S. Senate,” Raffensperger said. “I recommend that Senators Loeffler and Perdue start focusing on that.”

(Loeffler and Perdue are holding a runoff rally Wednesday morning at Cobb Republican headquarters in Marietta.)

Democratic president-elect Joe Biden leads Republican president Donald Trump in Georgia by around 10,000 votes, after Trump led by more than 370,000 at the end of election night.

But as has been the case in other states, notably Pennslyvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden moved ahead based largely on absentee ballots.

Biden made a victory speech on Saturday but Trump has not conceded, as his campaign is alleging voter fraud in those states and elsewere. He’s also refusing to cooperate in any transition efforts.

Boyce, who defeated then-chairman Tim Lee in 2016, is a retired Marine colonel who mentioned that it’s Veterans Day on Wednesday, “a great time to remember what we stand for. Many of us fought for freedom and still fight for freedom we all fight for freedom in our own ways.”

He said the best way to to that “is to acknowledge the will and voice of the people and to continue this transition in grace.”

Cupid will become the first Democrat to head county government since longtime chairman Ernest Barrett retired in 1984, and will be the first woman and African-American to hold the position.

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Cobb Republican Party to hold U.S. Senate campaign rally

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Both U.S. Senate races from Georgia are headed to Jan. 5 runoffs, and those campaigns are already getting underway.Cobb Republican U.S. Senate rally

On Wednesday the Cobb County Republican Party will be holding a “Save Our Majority” rally in support of GOP senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

They will both be in attendance at the Cobb Republican headquarters (799 Roswell St.), and special guest is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

The rally begins at 10 a.m. and you can register to attend by clicking here.

Republicans are holding to a tight lead in control of the Senate after last Tuesday’s elections. After just missing winning without a runoff last week, Perdue is facing Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Loeffler will be facing Democrat Raphael Warnock, who got the most votes in Tuesday’s “jungle” primary.

Cobb figures to be a battleground, especially after Ossoff and Warnock got more votes in the county that their Republican foes.

Ossoff got 54 percent of the Cobb vote, while Warnock got 37 percent of the vote compared to 25 percent for Loeffler.

She was quickly endorsed by Congressman Doug Collins, a Republican who finished third in the jungle primary.

(Democratic president-elect Joe Biden also won the county with 56 percent of the vote, although the presidential voting in Georgia appears headed for a recount. Biden has a roughly 10,000-vote lead after final votes were being counted over the weekend).

Loeffler and Perdue have demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger resign over the handling of the presidential vote.

On Monday they issued a statement accusing him of mismanagement and lack of transparency and said Georgia’s election system was an embarrassment.

They didn’t specify what those failures were. Raffensperger is a pro-Trump Republican who was a state legislator and member of the Johns Creek City Council.

He said he won’t be resigning and that he’ll continue to make sure that all legal votes are counted, and illegal votes aren’t.

He said that if was any illegal voting it “is unlikely” it would rise to the numbers to change the outcome in Georgia.

“As a Republican, I am concerned about Republicans keeping the U.S. Senate,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “I recommend that Senators Loeffler and Perdue start focusing on that.”

The Trump campaign has been alleging fraud in states were the vote has been close, including Pennsylvania, which was called for Biden by news outlets on Saturday. Biden gave a victory speech on Saturday but Trump has not conceded.

There will be a Dec. 7 deadline to register to vote for the Georgia Senate runoffs, and anyone who wants to get a mail-in absentee ballot can request one starting Nov. 18.

The runoffs will have early voting starting Dec. 14; more details in Cobb are forthcoming.

The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration will be certifying election results on Friday.

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Cobb commissioner-elect: ‘We can overcome every challenge’

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Jerica Richardson, Cobb Commission candidate

After soaking in the reality of winning her first stab at public office—and culminating an historic election in Cobb County in the process—District 2 commissioner-elect Jerica Richardson admitted there’s some sobering work ahead for her and her colleagues in the coming months.

She’s one of two new faces on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, which in January will have a Democratic majority and will be all female.

That majority also is made of black women, including Richardson, a 31-year-old Equifax manager, who edged out Republican Fitz Johnson in this week’s elections.

Chair-elect Lisa Cupid defeated incumbent Mike Boyce and Monique Sheffield was elected to succeed Cupid as District 4 commissioner in South Cobb.

As of Saturday, and with a few absentee and provisional ballots to count, Richardson was leading Johnson by 1,224 votes, 53,642 to 52,418 (updated results can be found here).

Johnson essentially conceded on Thursday, saying “it doesn’t look great.”

“I was hearing from a lot of people that [the closeness of the results] was because of the quality of the candidates,” said Richardson, who called Johnson “a Cobb County success story. He ran a real cordial race.”

After running the campaigns of Cobb State Rep. Erick Allen and Cobb school board member Jaha Howard, Richardson said she viewed her maiden campaign as an effort to “build bridges in deep waters.”

It was among various metaphors she’s used in her “Connecting Cobb” theme of her campaign (previous ECN story here).

In succeeding retiring commissioner Bob Ott, she’ll inherit a distinct district in itself. In includes most of East Cobb below Sandy Plains Road and the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna area.

Johnson won most of the East Cobb precincts, and Richardson prevailed in the latter.

“Colors on a map don’t tell the whole story of a community,” said Richardson, who lived in a neighborhood near The Avenue in East Cobb and now resides in the Delk Road area.

Part of her campaign outreach, she said, has been to “cut through echo chambers. If this is an opportunity to build those bridges then this is that year.”

Tackling a county budget affected by the continuing economic fallout from COVID-related lockdowns and other consequences of the pandemic loom large.

“There are going to be some really hard conversations,” Richardson said. “What are our priorities? Our focus? Our vision. And we’ll have to make decisions based on that.”

Among short-term priorities, she favors closing the Sterigenics plant “until further notice.” Homeowners living near the Smyrna-based company that sterilizes medical equipment have filed a lawsuit over what they claim have been cancer-causing emissions.

On a broader and longer-term scale, she said it’s going to be vital to bring as many individuals and areas of Cobb to the table to hash them out, to “build the synergy” of a community she said hasn’t been fully represented on the board.

“The commissioners haven’t had a united vision,” she said, noting that in recent years, it’s been four Republicans and one Democrat—Cupid—who’s often voted alone.

“I don’t see people as red or blue, I see them as an individual,” Richardson said.

During the campaign, Richardson set up some “open office hours” to get to know voters—in a socially-distanced manner—and plans to keep doing so.

She campaigned on a few occasions with Howard, who’s become a firebrand on the school board, angering his Republican colleagues and most recently, taking a knee during the pledge of allegiance at a meeting.

Richardson said “that’s not my method, but I will be having conversations with different groups of people.”

She said Howard was responding to school parents who weren’t being heard, “but he was always willing to listen.”

Richardson acknowledged that a new dynamic on the commission will take some getting used to in Cobb County, which has been dominated by a white, conservative and mostly male political establishment for decades.

“When things change, there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty,” she said. “The only way we’re able to overcome the challenges that we have is to focus on love,” and what she says are the three unifying things that are of utmost importance: expanding liberty, empathy and opportunity” for Cobb citizens.

“If we can do those things, we can overcome every challenge,” Richardson said. “I really believe it.”

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East Cobb legislative incumbents, McBath win re-election

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Kay Kirkpatrick, East Cobb city map
State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick has won a second full term.

Although some of them got a scare—including one of the state’s most influential lawmakers—all members of East Cobb’s legislative contingent were re-elected this week.

In the race targeted as part of an effort to flip party control of the state house to the Democrats, Republican Rep. Sharon Cooper appears to have pulled out another close re-election battle over Democrat Luisa Wakeman.

As of Saturday morning, Cooper leads Wakeman by 481 votes, with the final absentee and provisional ballots still being counted.

It’s not clear how many there are, and how many may be in District 43, which includes part of East Cobb and some of Sandy Springs.

It’s the district Cooper has represented since 1997, and she serves as the Chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.

While Cooper claimed victory on Wednesday, Wakeman initially did not concede. On Friday, she acknowledged that “it appears as if we will fall just short.” She congratulated Cooper and said “I was so encouraged to see you campaign on funding schools and expanding Medicaid for women in need of maternal care. My hope is that you will use this term in office to continue advancing these progressive causes. Georgia is counting on you.”

The Cooper-Wakeman rematch was one of the key races Democrats were targeting in a high-stakes, and high-spending election.

The candidates raised more than $500,000 combined, but Democrats have flipped only one of the 16 seats they needed to win to end Republican control.

State House results

District 37

  • Mary Frances Williams (D, incumbent): 15,931 (54%)
  • Rose Wing (R): 13,591 (46%)

District 43

  • Sharon Cooper (R, incumbent): 15,920 (50.7%)
  • Luisa Wakeman (D): 15,439 (49.2%)

District 44

  • Don Parsons (R, incumbent): 16,978 (51.8%)
  • Connie DiCicco (D): 15,606 (48%)

District 45

  • Matt Dollar (R, incumbent): 19,273 (54.8%)
  • Sara Tindall Ghazal (D): 15,902 (45.2%)

District 46

  • John Carson (R, incumbent): 21,680 (61.5%)
  • Caroline Holko (D): 15,583 (38.5%)

In the Georgia State Senate District 32 race, Republican incumbent Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick was facing Democrat Christine Triebsch for the third time in four years.

They first met in a 2017 special election to succeed former Sen. Judson Hill. Kirkpatrick earned a first full term in 2018, and on Tuesday the early results were close.

But Kirkpatrick earned a comfortable victory to retain the seat that includes most of East Cobb and some of Sandy Springs.

District 32

  • Kay Kirkpatrick (R, incumbent): 63,221 (56%)
  • Christine Triebsch (D): 49,859 (44%)
U.S. Rep Lucy McBath, gun violence research funding, McBath border-funding vote
U.S. Rep Lucy McBath is going back to Washington for a second term.

The 6th Congressional District race was also a rematch, as Republican former U.S. Rep. Karen Handel was trying to reclaim the seat from Democrat Lucy McBath, who won in a 2018 cliffhanger.

McBath has been the first Democrat to hold the seat in 40 years, and it was targeted by national Republicans in their bid to win back control of the House.

While the GOP did flip some House seats, Democrats will maintain their majority and their ranks will include McBath, who claimed her re-election thanks to strong results in the Fulton and DeKalb portions of the district.

Handel won the East Cobb area, as she did in 2018, but only with 51 percent of the vote there.

  • Lucy McBath (D, incumbent): 215,680 (54.6%)
  • Karen Handel (R): 179,398 (45.4%)

For full results of these races, click here.

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Banks wins 4th term as Cobb school board stays in GOP hands

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Cobb school board GOP majority

Cobb Board of Education member David Banks was targeted in both the primary and general election this year, criticized as being out of touch and insensitive to minority concerns in the Cobb County School District.

The East Cobb Republican had his closest challenge yet on Tuesday from Democratic first-time candidate Julia Hurtado. She said Cobb County has “outgrown” Banks, a retired technology consultant whom some have accused of falling asleep during school board meetings.

After trailing through election-day results, however, Banks bucked the absentee-balloting trend that favored Democrats in Cobb County and pulled out a 2,639-vote win to earn a fourth term.

He was one of three incumbent Republican males who won re-election over Democratic women, meaning that the GOP will hold on to its 4-3 majority on the Cobb school board.

Banks won 21 of the 27 precincts in Post 5—which comprises the Pope and Lassiter clusters, and some of the Walton and Wheeler areas—and captured 52 percent of the vote, which was the lowest for him since he first was first elected in 2008.

“I was expecting 70 percent, but a win is a win,” said Banks, the board’s vice chairman this year. (Full results can be seen by clicking here.)

More Elections Coverage

Chairman Brad Wheeler of West Cobb also had a close contest, but was able to win by 1,800 votes, also against a first-time Democratic candidate.

The Democratic wins in countywide races didn’t filter down to the three contested school board races (another board seat was secured in the primary by Democrat Tre’ Hutchins, who will succeed outgoing member David Morgan from Post 3 in South Cobb).

Banks couldn’t resist stirring up the partisan pot in victory.

“I really hope people aren’t trying to believe in socialism,” he said. When asked who those people might be, Banks said “anybody who voted for Democrats. Why cut your own throat?”

Banks spent little and campaigned even less, using the reach of his e-mail newsletter and distributing some yard signs to get out the word about his campaign.

He was dismissive of Hurtado, whose daughter is a Sedalia Park Elementary School student.

“I didn’t pay any attention to what she said,” Banks said.

He did mention a concession statement Hurtado posted on social media, saying that she contacted Banks after the election results were in, and reminded him, among other things, that “I am going to be the airhorn that wakes him up every time he snoozes on our kids and our teachers.

“We’ve built an unprecedented movement and have already ignited so many important conversations that were never part of East Cobb before; I know we’ll continue to make change together, even if we have to go around him to do so.”

She lashed out not just against Banks.

“The men who will be keeping their seats on the school board couldn’t stick to the issues because they didn’t have anything productive to contribute to the conversation. They chose to focus on partisan politics rather than stuff of substance; I thought we as a community had evolved past that, but the demographics just aren’t there yet. These men went negative because they only know how to lead through fear.

“They spread misinformation and ran poorly-produced attack ads against a bunch of moms. In a school board race. They should be ashamed of themselves. I hope they’ll consider their very narrow wins as a referendum on this behavior. There may not be more of us yet, but there are too many of us to ignore, and we won’t tolerate this kind of behavior. Our kids deserve better.”

Among the attacks against Hurtado was a video ad that quoted her in an online candidates forum, saying she supported changing the name of Wheeler High School and favored revisiting the county’s popular senior tax exemption from school taxes.

Banks said he wasn’t involved in the ad, but didn’t like what he said was a “nasty” response from Hurtado, a “nasty threatening statement she made.”

Banks came under fire during the campaign from Democratic board member Charisse Davis for comments he made about racial and cultural issues in the Cobb school district, which has a majority-minority enrollment.

Davis said Banks was “spewing racist trash,” including comments he made about Cobb being endangered by “white flight” he cited in other metro Atlanta school districts.

He reiterated that concern after his re-election victory, and said that with a continued Republican school board majority, the Cobb school district can continue to have a “forward-thinking learning environment.

“If it had gone the other way, we’d be headed in the direction of Atlanta and DeKalb,” Banks said.

He said the biggest challenge the Cobb school district faces now is “how we manage getting back the learning process. We can do this more than one way.”

With the Cobb school district offering face-to-face and remote options for students this year, Banks said better integrating those programs will be critical.

He does support full face-to-face learning at the elementary school level, but believes there can be more of a mix of virtual options at the middle- and high school levels.

“Virtual doesn’t work for everybody,” he said. “Our job will be to figure out what works best for each student. There are many opportunities we haven’t explored yet.”

Hurtado thanked Davis and Jaha Howard, another board member Banks has lashed out against over the last two years. He’s not optimistic the tenor of a fractious Cobb school board will improve anytime soon.

“As long as those two Democrats continue to create chaos and not work for the best interests of the students, I don’t see anything changing,” Banks said.

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Cobb Elections settling final ballots, counting provisionals

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cobb advance voting, Cobb voter registration deadline, Walton and Dickerson PTSA candidates forum

Here’s an update from Cobb County government as of 10:30 Friday morning:

  • Cobb Elections workers are working with the bi-partisan panel to adjudicate the last few ballots under investigation.

  • They have 25 ballots left to adjudicate. Another 50 cured ballots will be processed only after confirming those voters are NOT on the list of those who voted on election day.

  • There are 906 provisional ballots pending. Voters have until the end of the day today to provide ID if they didn’t have it at the polls, sign the absentee envelope if there was a missing signature or provide more evidence if the ballot was identified as having a signature mismatch. Those voters were contacted by letter, email, or phone call.

Earlier Friday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said there are 8,197 votes left to count in the state, including 700 in Cobb.

The majority of those are in Gwinnett (4,800), which like Cobb has been surging for Democrats in recent elections.

As of 10:30 a.m., Democratic former vice president Joe Biden took the lead from Republican President Donald Trump overnight Friday, by 1,098 votes, with Georgia’s 16 electoral votes up for grabs.

As of 10:30 a.m., Biden had 2,449,590 votes to 2,448,492 for Trump.

That’s a difference of 1,098 votes.

Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue also was trying to avoid a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff. At 10:30 a.m. Perdue has 49.84 percent of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.84 percent.

The results from those races are being updated here.

 

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2nd Georgia Senate runoff looms as presidential race closes

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Ga. Senate runoff

UPDATED, SATURDAY, 3 P.M.

Georgia will have two U.S. Senate runoffs on Jan. 5 that could determine which party gains control in that chamber.

Republican Sen. David Perdue was at 49.78 percent of the vote in his race against Democrat Jon Ossoff.

At the same time, the Georgia presidential race could be headed for a recount, with Joe Biden holding a roughly 7,500-vote lead over Donald Trump.

The results from those races are being updated here.

As final votes were being counted in Georgia, news outlets began calling the presidential race for Biden based on vote-counting in his home state of Pennsylvania.

If that holds up, that would give Biden 290 electoral votes to 214 for Trump. Presidential candidates need 270 votes to win.

Georgia, Arizona and Nevada were the other states that remain too close to call.

Trump led Biden in Georgia by 370,000 votes on election night, but absentee ballots have heavily been in favor of Biden.

Biden and Ossoff also won Cobb County easily, as did Raphael Warnock, the first-place finisher in a “jungle primary” special election in the other U.S. Senate race.

Warnock, the minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—the church of Martin Luther King Jr.—will face U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican appointed last year.

The winner of that runoff will fill the remaining two years of the term won in 2015 by Johnson, who retired due to health reasons..

UPDATED, FRIDAY 10:30 A.M.:

Democratic former vice president Joe Biden edged ahead of Republican President Donald Trump overnight Friday, with Georgia’s 16 electoral votes up for grabs.

As of 10:30 a.m., Biden had 2,449,590 votes to 2,448,492 for Trump.

That’s a difference of 1,098 votes.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that as of 8:15 a.m. Friday, there are 8,197 votes still to count in Georgia, including 700 in Cobb County.

The majority of those votes are in Gwinnett, where 4,800 votes have not been counted in a county that like Cobb has been surging toward Democrats in recent elections.

Provisional, military and overseas ballots, and ballots needing to be “cured” or corrected by voters also were to be counted on Friday.

Biden also has moved ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania as final vote-counting continues.

Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue (in photo at left) was trying to fend off a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff (in photo at right). That runoff would take place on Jan. 5.

Perdue’s lead as of 10:30 a.m. Friday stands at 98,849 over Ossoff. More importantly, Perdue has 49.84 percent of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.84 percent.

Runoffs take place in Georgia when the leading candidate gets less than 50 percent of the vote plus one vote.

Shane Hazel, a Libertarian candidate, has tallied 2.32 percent of the vote.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Cobb will certify election results next Friday, Nov. 13.

Party control of the U.S. Senate, which has been in Republican hands, could be determined in if both Georgia races go to runoffs.

In Tuesday’s special election, appointed Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler finished second in a “jungle primary” to Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The winner of that runoff, also on Jan. 5, will fill the remaining two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.

Biden (56 percent) and Ossoff (54 percent) won Cobb, and Warnock was the top vote-getter in the county in his race (37 percent).

Like Biden, Ossoff has been able to close with absentee votes from metro Atlanta and other strong Democratic parts of the state.

On Thursday afternoon Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, sent out a statement saying that “the votes are still being counted, but we are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Senator David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible record of unemployment, disease, and corruption.”

Perdue hasn’t responded directly to the prospects of facing a runoff; instead he went on social media Thursday, commenting on the presidential race, and saying that if “every lawful vote cast should be counted, once,” Trump will be re-elected.

Some pro-Trump supporters gathered at State Farm Arena in Atlanta Thursday to protest what they said was a “fix” against the president in the vote-counting.

In Thursday evening remarks at the White House, Trump claimed “we’re clearly going to win Georgia,” referring to a 117,000-vote margin he enjoyed after election-day votes were counted.

He didn’t mention the new numbers based on absentee ballots counted.

The Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party have filed lawsuits over the ballot-counting in the presidential race, and Trump’s campaign also was doing the same in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where mail-in ballots are being counted.

Other states that are too close to call and that are still counting are Arizona and Nevada.

“This is a fraud to the American public,” said Trump, adding that “frankly, we did win this election. . . . This is a major fraud on our nation.”

The latest overall results compiled by C-SPAN have Biden with 264 electoral votes to 214 for Trump, with four states to call: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency. Georgia has 16 electoral votes.

 

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Cobb commission election update: Richardson extends lead

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Cobb commission election update

After seeing her lead whittled to just a few hundred votes after Tuesday’s election-day votes were counted, Democrat Jerica Richardson now has a lead of 1,208 votes over Republican Fitz Johnson for the District 2 seat on the Cobb Board of Commissioners.

Richardson and Johnson are vying to succeed Republican three-term commissioner Bob Ott,, who decided not to run again.

According to figures updated Wednesday night by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, Richardson has 53,509 votes to 52,301 for Johnson.

That’s a margin of 50.57 to 49.43 percent, which would preclude a recount.

UPDATED, 5:30 P.M. THURSDAY:

Additional ballots counted have pushed Richardson’s lead to 1,224 votes (53,642 to 52,418), and a margin of 50.58 to 49.42 percent.

Recounts in Georgia are allowed if the difference between two candidates is 0.5 percent of the vote or less.

Candidate profiles

You can read through the results by clicking here. The latest numbers include mailed-in absentee ballots.

Early-voting numbers for the candidates were very close: 22,167 for Richardson, and 21,269 for Johnson.

He got 11,061 votes from in-person election-day voting, while she received 6,322.

But Richardson has been able to pull away with mail-in absentee votes.

She has received 25,020 of those, and Johnson has 19,971.

“It doesn’t look great but we just have to wait and see what happens,” said Johnson, who won the Republican nomination in similar fashion, with a razor-thin edge over Andy Smith in a runoff in August.

For details and to view precinct results, click here.

Johnson won most precincts in East Cobb and his home base in Vinings (indicated in blue on the map above), while Richardson took most of the precincts in the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna area (in green).

In an interview with East Cobb News, Richardson said she expected the race to be close, and credited Johnson with “running an impeccable campaign. He’s a Cobb success story and he ran a very cordial campaign.

“Yes, it was really close, and I think the community benefits from that.”

Cobb Elections had 15,000 votes to count as of Wednesday, but that number is now down to 700 remaining absentee ballots, according to a message sent Thursday morning.

On Friday, another 882 provisional ballots will be processed, along with military ballots postmarked on election days.

Voters who need to “cure” their ballots—addressing those with missing or mismatched signatures, among other things—will have that done on Friday as well.

As we noted earlier, this race will swing party control on the five-member commission from Republicans, who have had a 4-1 advantage, two Democrats, with a 3-2 split.

Commissioner Lisa Cupid, who defeated Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce and Monique Sheffield’s, her successor in South Cobb, are the other Democrats.

In January, Richardson, Cupid and Sheffield will form a board majority, joining Republicans JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb and Keli Gambrill of North Cobb.

The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration will certify all the results next Friday, Nov. 13.

The District 2 race isn’t the only nailbiter left.

In the State House District 43 seat in East Cobb, Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper leads Democrat Luisa Wakeman by 487 votes, with all but remaining absentee and provisional ballots counted.

Cooper has 15,874 votes, or 50.78 percent, to 15,387 votes for Wakeman, or 49.22 percent.

That’s even closer than Cooper’s win over Wakeman in 2018, which was by less than 800 votes.

The current numbers were updated Thursday at 9:30 a.m. If they stand, that margin of the vote also would preclude a recount.

Cooper declared victory on Wednesday, while Wakeman said she’s waiting for every vote to be counted.

 

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East Cobb Elections Update: Democrats sweep county races

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Cobb Democrats sweep county races, East Cobb Elections Update
From L-R: Lisa Cupid, Craig Owens and Flynn Broady

In countywide races, Democrats swept out incumbent Republicans across the board in Cobb County general elections this week. (see previous ECN election-night post).

Commissioner Lisa Cupid defeated incumbent Republican Mike Boyce in the Cobb Commission Chair race, becoming the first woman and the first African-American to hold the position.

She received 203,738 votes, or 53 percent to Boyce’s 179,375 votes or 47 percent.

Cupid led from the outset, as Democrats across the county at all levels enjoyed early and absentee voting advantages, and Boyce could never get closer than the final margin.

On Wednesday morning he conceded on his Facebook page, saying he called Cupid with a congratulatory message, “expressing my appreciation for running an issues-based campaign, and wishing her all the best in the future.

“Thank all of you for your support during my term as Chairman. It has been an honor to have served the people of Cobb County.”

Boyce was elected in 2016 after defeating then-incumbent Tim Lee in the Republican primary, but was caught up on an historic wave of Democratic support across Cobb.

Cupid also congratulated Boyce on running a “respectful” campaign and called him a “respectful colleague.”

She told supporters that “this was a campaign about moving Cobb forward together. Whether you voted for me or didn’t, whether you voted at all, my aim is to serve everyone the same. My goal is to move the whole county forward and make this an ever better place to live for everyone.”

Cupid said announcements will be forthcoming “as we begin the collaborative process of embarking on this new chapter in Cobb’s history.”

Updated election results

Related coverage

The Democratic wave also swept out of office Republican Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren, who lost to Cobb Police Major Craig Owens.

Owens got 202,272 votes, or 54 percent, to 167,472 votes, or 45 percent for Warren, who has been in office since 1994. But recently he came under fire for a series of deaths at the Cobb County Jail that have prompted an investigation by the Cobb District Attorney’s Office.

That office will have a new top prosecutor after the elections. Republican Joyette Holmes, who was appointed last year to succeed current GBI director Vic Reynolds, lost to Democrat Flynn Broady, an assistant Cobb solicitor.

Broady, who ran unsuccessfully for the 11th Congressional District seat in 2018, edged Holmes by a 187,708-180,990 vote count, or 51-49 percent.

Early Wednesday morning Broady said in a statement that “I will use restorative practices, not punitive, while acting as District Attorney for Cobb County and I will ensure the fair treatment of all people.”

In the final weeks before the campaign, he had pushed for Holmes to investigate the death of Vincent Truitt, a 17-year-old who was shot in the back and killed by a Cobb police officer in July.

Democrats also claimed victory for Cobb Superior Court Clerk. Connie Taylor defeated Republican incumbent Rebecca Keaton 51-48 percent.

Cobb voters overwhelmingly approved another Cobb Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax with 66 percent of the vote. The new sales tax period will begin in 2022 and will last for six years.

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