The Georgia presidential and general primaries have been pushed back to June 9, but some absentee ballots that have been requested will start to be mailed back to voters next week.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office has said the mailings will begin on April 21. The state’s estimated 6.9 million active voters were sent forms in the mail to request an absentee ballot.
Voters who wish to vote absentee must return their filled-out ballots by 7 p.m. on the primary date.
The broad absentee ballot access is just for the primaries for now, with a much higher return rate than usual expected due to safety and social distancing concerns over the Coronavirus.
Cobb voters over the age of 60 received two absentee ballot request forms, one from the county elections office and one from the state, due to an inadvertent overlap.
Cobb Elections said it mailed out absentee ballot applications to those older voters in late March, but its print vendor was late in fulfilling the order due to virus-related staffing shortages.
By the time those were sent out, the state mailed applications to all registered voters in Georgia regardless of age.
In a note on its website, Cobb Elections said both applications are valid, and voters 60 and older can fill out and return either of them to request an absentee ballot.
If you have not received an absentee ballot application, you can request one by clicking hereand filling out the form.
The Cobb Elections office also said it is processing absentee voting applications in the order in which they are received. The preferred email to send in your application is absentee@cobbcounty.org.
More information can be found here on absentee balloting in Georgia at the Secretary of State’s website.
If you haven’t registered to vote, you now have until May 11 to do so, and can do that here.
On Wednesday the Georgia State Elections Board held an emergency meeting related to the delayed primaries and approved the use of drop boxes by county elections officials to handle returned absentee ballots.
The measure, which also is for the primary only, doesn’t require county elections offices to provide them, but offers some guidelines on how to set them up.
Cobb Elections is asking for a couple of other things while staff responds to so many absentee ballot requests.
One of them is patience. You’re asked not to call or e-mail to find out when your application was processed, and when you may get our absentee ballot. The office is updating its list of processed applications and making it public; a daily file of those forms can be found here.
Staff also is in need of homemade cloth masks. Starting May 4, Cobb Elections will be accepting masks at a donation bin at its main office at 736 Whitlock Ave. in Marietta. They’re seeking 1,400 masks to protect poll workers for the primaries.
If you’d like to help out, you can drop off masks in a plastic bag in the donation bin from 12-1 p.m. Monday-Friday.
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“This decision allows our office and county election officials to continue to put in place contingency plans to ensure that voting can be safe and secure when in-person voting begins and prioritizes the health and safety of voters, county election officials, and poll workers,” Raffensparger said.
He had resisted calls from Georgia House Speaker Dennis Ralston and others to delay the elections due to the statewide response to COVID-19, which has claimed 370 lives and infected more than 10,000 people in the state.
The Georgia delay also comes two days after the Wisconsin primary took place following a legal battle in which the state’s Supreme Court overturned the governor’s attempt to postpone voting.
There were poll worker shortages reported and many polling places were closed and consolidated. Citizens showed up at polls waiting in long lines, not able to observe social distancing guidelines, to cast their ballots.
In his announcement Thursday, Raffensparger said there were concerns from county elections officials in southwest Georgia that they “could not overcome the challenges brought on by COVID-19 in time for in-person voting to begin on April 27.”
The Albany area and surrounding counties have been hard-hit by COVID-19, with a state-high 62 deaths reported in Dougherty County.
The voter registration deadline has been pushed back to May 11, and early voting will take place on May 18.
Raffensparger had mailed out an absentee ballot application to all registered voters in Georgia, and the number of requests has overwhelmed county elections officials.
That includes Cobb Elections, which this week notified county voters that the Secretary of State’s vendor had not yet started mailing out absentee ballots.
According to Raffensparger, absentee ballot applications “will continue to be accepted and processed by counties even if the application said May 19. Once county election officials properly verify the signature on the application, the voter will be sent an absentee ballot for the primary election now to be held on June 9.”
The general primary includes voting for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by David Perdue, Congressional races, state legislative races, county commission contests, school board campaigns and judicial seats.
Any runoffs will now take place on Aug. 11.
The race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Kelly Loeffler will be a “jungle primary” held during the Nov. 3 general election.
The presidential preference primary had been moved to May 19 from its original date of March 24, but there won’t be anything unresolved on the ballot.
President Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate on the ballot, and former vice president Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign this week.
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After coming under fire for selling investments right before the Coronavirus outbreak, Georgia U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler said Wednesday she and her husband are liquidating their individual stock holdings and will be trading in exchange-traded and mutual funds from now on.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler
In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, the appointed successor to Johnny Isakson denied accusations of insider trading, and said she and her husband are changing their portfolios to “end media fixation” on the issue even though ethics provisions don’t require it.
Loeffler, who lives in Buckhead, was the chief executive of a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange, a commodity and financial service provider founded by her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher. He is also the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
Published reports indicated Loeffler and Sprecher bought and sold a total of $1.4 million in stock before financial markets suffered their worst fall since the recession in October 2008.
In the piece, entitled “I Never Traded on Confidential Coronavirus Information,” Loeffler wrote that she has never engaged in direct trading of investment accounts managed by third-party advisers, including Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs:
In its hunger to place blame, the media fixated on a fantasy of improper congressional trading, stemming from a Jan. 24 briefing I and other Senators attended with health officials. But based on contemporaneous reporting and public statements by the officials who provided the briefing, there was no material or nonpublic information discussed. All we did was meet public-health leaders and ask them questions about the emerging virus.
She referenced comments from Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut about the briefing that “what I heard in response to many questions is a tentative answer. . . . We need to know more.”
The full text of Loeffler’s op-ed was distributed to media outlets by her campaign.
Loeffler, a Republican appointed in December by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill Isakson’s unexpired term, is up for election in November.
In her op-ed, Loeffler said she expected attacks once she began her election campaign, “but these allegations go well beyond what should be considered acceptable. We have spent our entire lives building careers based on integrity and hard work.
“My family’s investment accounts are being used as weapons for an assault on my character at a time when we should all be focused on making our country safe and strong.”
The winner of the November election will serve out the final two years of Isakson’s term.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has announced that all 6.9 million registered voters in the state will be mailed absentee ballot applications in response to COVID-19.
In a release sent out this week, Raffensperger said this is a temporary measure that applies only to the now-delayed May 19 primaries. Voters aged 65 and older and those with disabilities can apply to vote absentee through the primary and general elections and any runoffs during the 2020 election cycle.
A few more items to note from the Secretary of State’s release:
Poll workers will receive additional resources to clean the equipment regularly. In-person voters who show up to vote in person will be instructed to maintain a safe distance when waiting to vote.
These measures will protect poll workers as well. Understanding the extra risk Georgia’s generally elderly poll workers face, Raffensperger is working to help counties hire more and younger poll workers. Extra staff will allow those who feel sick to be absent from the polls without significantly impacting continuity while a younger pool of workers will increase resiliency in the face of the COVID-19 threat.
On Friday, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston sent a letter to Raffensperger asking him to delay the primaries again, to a month or more, as the state grapples with a rising caseload of COVID-19 cases.
But Raffensperger has said the primary, which was to have taken place on Tuesday, will go on as rescheduled for May 19.
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Georgia’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak has prompted a delay in the state’s presidential primary.
Early voting has been underway since March 2 for the March 24 primary, which has now been pushed back to May 19.
That announcement was made Saturday by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (here’s his full statement).
May 19 is the date of Georgia’s general primary, which includes all other federal, state and local candidates.
“Events are moving rapidly and my highest priority is protecting the health of our poll workers, their families, and the community at large,” Raffensperger said. “Given these circumstances, I believe it is necessary and prudent to suspend the voting in the Presidential Preference Primary, and the local elections associated with them, and roll them into the already scheduled May 19 General Primary.”
Raffensperger said early voting would be halted for now.
He said one of the main concerns is conducting elections with a high number of poll workers 70 and older, and who are considered in a high-risk group because of their age.
On Saturday, Louisiana’s presidential primary, scheduled for April 4, was delayed to June 20.
The decision to delay the Georgia presidential primary came hours after Gov. Brian Kemp declared a public health emergency in the state. He also issued an executive order to call up as many as 2,000 Georgia National Guard troops in response to the situation.
Georgia’s positive tests for Coronavirus jumped from 42 on Friday to 66 Saturday; and Cobb’s nearly doubled in that time, from 8 to 15, the highest number of cases for any county in the state.
Cobb also has Georgia’s only Coronavirus-related death, a 67-year-old man who was being treated at WellStar Kennestone Hospital and had other medical issues.
Early voting in Cobb was to have expanded beyond the Cobb Elections main office in Marietta next week, including polling locations at the East Cobb Government Service Center, the Tim D. Lee Senior Center and Noonday Baptist Church.
Early voting did take place Saturday at the East Cobb Government Service Center, located on Lower Roswell Road.
According to Cobb Elections, 8,223 people have voted in Cobb during the early voting period through Thursday, 6,623 in the Democratic primary, and 1,600 in the Republican primary.
Another 5,461 absentee ballots have been issued, with 2,367 returned. Most of those ballots also have been Democratic.
Incumbent President Donald Trump is the only name on the Georgia GOP ballot, and former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are the only remaining major candidates still vying for the Democratic nomination.
Since winning the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29, Biden has won 14 other state primaries, including North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, and leads Sanders 890-736 in the delegate count.
The Georgia ballot includes several candidates who have suspended their campaigns, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Bloomberg have endorsed Biden.
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The qualifying deadline for 2020 elections in Georgia has passed, and there haven’t been any major surprises from what candidates had announced in the weeks leading up to this week’s filing period.
The most competitive primary races for East Cobb voters will be in the Republican primaries for Cobb Commission Chairman and Cobb Commission District 2, as well as Democratic and Republican primaries for Post 5 on the Cobb Board of Education.
There also will be a multi-candidate field in the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District, including former Congresswoman Karen Handel and four others.
The primaries are May 19, and Cobb voters also will be choosing party nominees for countywide offices including sheriff and district attorney, all legislative seats and one of two U.S. Senate seats.
Non-partisan primaries for judge positions on Cobb State Court and Cobb Superior Court also will be on the primary ballot.
Two legislative elections in East Cobb will feature rematches in November. In State Senate 32, Republican incumbent Kay Kirkpatrick is being opposed once again by Democrat Christine Triebsch.
In State House 43, Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper will face Democrat Luisa Wakeman, who made a close race in what has been a what has been a safe seat for Cooper, the House Health and Human Services Committee chairwoman.
Cobb Commission Chairman
Republican incumbent Mike Boyce of East Cobb is seeking a second term, and will be facing a familiar primary opponent and another newcomer.
Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce
Another East Cobb resident, Larry Savage, is making his third attempt in the GOP primary, having run in 2012 and 2016. Ricci Mason of Acworth, a retired Cobb Police officer, will be making his political debut.
The only Democrat to qualify is Lisa Cupid, who is completing her second term as District 4 commissioner in South Cobb.
Cobb Commission District 2
The retirement of Bob Ott has prompted several Republican candidates to qualify for the district, which includes some of East Cobb as well as the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.
The GOP qualifiers are East Cobb residents Andy Smith, Ott’s appointee to the Cobb Planning Commission, Kevin Nicholas, a Boyce appointee to the Development Authority of Cobb County, and business executive and entrepreneur Fitz Johnson of Vinings.
Nicholas ran for Post 6 on the Cobb school board (Walton, Wheeler clusters) in 2012 and Fitz Johnson is a former candidate for Georgia School Superintendent.
Jerica Richardson, who’s worked on several Democratic campaigns, including that of current Cobb school board member Jaha Howard, is the only Democrat to qualify.
Richardson and Smith are first-time candidates for public office.
Cobb School Board Post 5
Cobb school board member David Banks
Three-term Republican incumbent David Banks had little opposition in his last two re-election bids but has plenty this year from several first-time candidates for the seat that includes the Pope and Lassiter attendance zones.
Other GOP candidates he’ll be facing in the primary are Delta Air Lines pilot Shelley O’Malley and IT consultant Matt Harper.
Another announced Republican candidate, attorney Rob Madayag, said this week he wouldn’t be running due to legal action he’s threatening against the Cobb County School District over bullying reporting issues.
Two Democratic candidates have qualified, current Lassiter PTSA co-president Tammy Andress and physical therapist Julia Hurtado.
The Pope High School Council is holding a forum for the Post 5 candidates next Sunday, March 15, at 3 p.m. in the school’s performing arts center.
6th District Congress
Handel, who won the seat in a 2017 special election but lost to Democrat Lucy McBath in 2018, got the support of the Republican establishment as she began her bid to regain her seat.
Former U.S. Rep. Karen Handel
In the GOP primary, she will be on the ballot along with operations manager Mykel Lynn Barthelmy, Alpharetta businessman Blake Harbin, retired business owner Paulette Smith and former Altanta Falcons running back Joe Profit.
McBath is the only Democrat to qualify in the 6th District, which includes East Cobb, North Fulton and North DeKalb.
Cobb Sheriff
Longtime incumbent Neil Warren is the only Republican to qualify, but there’s a three-way race for the Democratic nomination, involving former sheriff’s deputy Jimmy Herndon of East Cobb, Gregory Gilstrap and Craig Owens.
Legislative races
State Rep. candidate Caroline Holko
The only East Cobb seat in the Georgia General Assembly with a contested primary is in District 46. Caroline Holko, who ran for Cobb Commission District 3 in 2018, is facing nurse Shirley Ritchie. Incumbent State Rep. John Carson is the only Republican who qualified.
In District 33, Republican incumbent Don Parsons will face Democratic consultant Connie DiCicco in November. In District 45, Republican State Rep. Matt Dollar is being challenged by Sarah Tindall Ghazal, a former voter access specialist for the Georgia Democratic Party.
Cobb Judgeships
Five incumbent Superior Court judges will not face re-election opposition: Kimberly Childs, Mary Staley, Gregory Poole, Tain Kell and Chief Judge Reuben Green did not draw any challengers.
JasonMarbutt, Cobb Superior Court Judge candidate
Two retirements have prompted primary contests: Attorneys John Robert Greco, Jason Marbutt of East Cobb and Greg Shenton are vying for the post being vacated by Stephen Schuster.
Judge Lark Ingram also is retiring, and her post drew candidates Kellie Hill, currently a Cobb magistrate judge, and attorney Daniele Johnson.
In State Court, a retirement there also has led to a contested primary in Division 1, Post 6, where Toby Prodgers is stepping aside. The candidates are attorneys Joseph Atkins, Trina Griffiths, Scott Halperin, Mazi Mazloom, Diana Simmons and David Willingham.
Seven other incumbents are unopposed, as are the incumbent Chief Magistrate Judge, Brendan Murphy, and Probate Court Judge Kelli Wolk.
Seven Democrats have qualified for the nomination to oppose Republican incumbent David Perdue, who has no primary opposition.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler
The hopefuls include Jon Ossoff, who lost to Handel in a special Congressional election in 2017, former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, former lieutenant governor candidate Sarah Riggs Amico, retired military veteran James Knox, journalist Tricia Carpenter McCracken, health care professional Marckeith DeJesus and civil rights lawyer Maya Dillard Smith.
A “jungle primary” to determine who’ll finish the final two years of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term will take place in November.
Republican businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp until then, has primary opposition from Congressman Doug Collins, engineer Derrick Grayson, business executive Wayne Johnson and educator Kandiss Taylor.
Democratic candidates include Matt Lieberman, the son of former U.S. Senator and Democratic vice presidental nominee Joe Lieberman, Tamara Johnson-Shealey, physician Joy-Felicia Slade, attorney Ed Tarver and Richard Dien Winfield, a philosophy professor at the University of Georgia.
Unless there is an outright winner (50 percent plus-1 of the vote), the top two finishers, regardless of party, would go into a runoff.
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A candidate for the Cobb Board of Education says he’s withdrawing after he announced that he may file a lawsuit against the Cobb County School District.
Rob Madayag, an attorney, said late Monday that he wouldn’t be qualifying for the Post 5 seat currently held by two-term incumbent David Banks.
Madayag had been one of four GOP hopefuls to announce for the seat, including Banks, as qualifying began Monday.
Post 5 includes the Pope and Lassiter clusters.
In a post to a Cobb schools-related Facebook page, Madayag said that “based on several factors, I do not think I am the best candidate at this time.”
Madayag filed notice last week that he may take the CCSD to court, saying it doesn’t properly report bullying incidents under the state’s school anti-bullying law.
“I intend to win the lawsuit and will not be able to dedicate the amount of time to campaign and win that i think necessary,” Madayag said in his statement on Monday. “I do not plan on losing, and with the number of depositions and document requests in the litigation I have mapped out, I expect to have most of my free time taken up.”
In a letter sent to school board members and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale on Feb. 25 (you can read it here), Madayag said he was skeptical of huge reductions in reported instances of bullying in Cobb schools under Ragsdale—to be specific, 86 percent between 2014 and 2018.
Madayag, who said his daughter has been bullied in Cobb schools, wrote that it’s “a rate that defies all logic and reason and is a significant outlier with respect to all the other school districts in the metro-Atlanta area, and quite possibly the entire United States.”
In addition to Banks, the other Republican candidates for the Post 5 season are Shelley O’Malley, a Delta Air Lines pilot, and IT consultant Matt Harper.
Two Democrats also have announced, current Lassiter PTSA co-president Tammy Andress, and physical therapist Julia Hurtado.
Qualifying for the May 19 general primary ends at noon Friday.
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A bill sponsored by an East Cobb legislator to increase protections for residents of senior care homes and require stronger training measures for employees at those facilities easily passed the Georgia House on Friday.
State Rep. Sharon Cooper
HB 987, introduced last week by State Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-East Cobb), passed by a vote of 160-1 and will now go to the Senate.
You can read the bill here. Cooper, a retired nurse, is the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
Her bill increases safety regulations for nursing homes and other senior care facilities, and raises maximum penalties for abuse and neglect cases.
Under HB 987, senior care facilities with memory care services must be certified. They also must make more detailed financial reports and provide more training for caregiving staff and administrators.
The bill was heavily pressed by senior advocates, including the Alzheimer’s Association of Georgia, following an investigative series by the AJC about injuries and deaths of senior-care residents due to abuse and neglect.
One of those deaths took place August 2017, when Adam Bennett, a 91-year-old resident at the Sunrise at East Cobb facility on Johnson Ferry Road, was found badly injured in his room. He later died at WellStar Kennestone Hospital due to what the Cobb Medical Examiner’s Office concluded was blunt force trauma.
Landon Terrel, a caregiver at Sunrise, was charged with elder abuse and also was tried for murder. A mistrial was declared on the murder charge, but he was sentenced to serve five years in prison and five on probation for elder neglect.
During the trial, some of Terrel’s coworkers testified he had been the subject of complaints from other residents and the court heard he had been fired from other caregiving jobs for neglecting patients.
Bennett’s family has sued Sunrise Senior Living, which operates more than 300 senior facilities in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
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Candidates for federal state and local elected offices in Georgia will be qualifying next week as early voting in the state’s presidential primary also gets underway.
Qualifying will be Monday-Friday of next week. To be more specific, the process begins on Monday, March 2, at 9 a.m. and concludes next Friday, March 6, at 12 p.m.
Cobb Elections has more information here about qualifying for offices in Cobb County, with a link to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office for state-level qualifying.
For next week, those locations will be the Cobb Elections Office (736 Whitlock Ave.) and the Cobb Senior Wellness Center (1150 Powder Springs St.).
The East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road) will have early voting on Saturday, March 14 and March 16-20 for the presidential primary.
Presidential primary early voting in East Cobb also will take place March 16-20 at Noonday Baptist Church (4120 Canton Road) and Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3332 Sandy Plains Road).
Voters in the presidential primary will choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot. In the latter, only incumbent President Donald Trump’s name is listed, per a decision by the Georgia GOP (sample ballots shown below).
All existing Cobb precincts will be open on primary day, March 24, and some polling places have changed, including several in East Cobb.
The Georgia general primary is May 19, and the ballots will be Democratic, Republican and non-partisan.
Among the local races in East Cobb that figure to be highly contested are the 6th Congressional District, Cobb Commission District 2, Cobb Board of Education Post 5 and State House District 43.
Cobb Commission Chairman, all legislative seats, all U.S. House seats and both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats will be up for grabs.
The deadline to register to vote in the general primary is April 20.
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From the office of Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell:
Recently, there have been changes to voting precincts around the county. Those changes are the result of population shifts, the need to move polling places out of schools, etc.
Cobb Elections staff is finalizing polling changes for the March primary. More than 35 polling places have changed locations since the last election, and Cobb County Elections Director Janine Eveler urges voters to act to make sure they know where to vote in the upcoming primary election.
Other changes were made to split larger precincts in half to avoid long lines at polling places. Several other precincts were changed because the polling locations were no longer available.
Janine Eveler, the Cobb Elections Director, would like to explain the changes, voter access, voting systems, how this affects voters and answer any concerns you have around the changes. You are cordially invited to a joint town hall with me and Commissioner Gambrill featuring Director Eveler. The town hall will be held on Feb. 27 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the North Cobb Regional Library at 3535 Old 41 Hwy, NW, Kennesaw. If there are any questions, please contact Inger.Eberhart@cobbcounty.org or call 770-528-3317.
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Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce and Larry Savage, a candidate in that race, will be speaking Monday at a Georgia Tea Party forum in Marietta.
Boyce and Savage are both Republicans who live in East Cobb. The event takes place at the Cobb Republican Party office (799 Roswell Street), with Boyce speaking at 7 p.m., and Savage at 8 p.m.
They have formally announced their candidacies for the May 19 primary. Boyce is a retired Marine colonel and is an active member at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church. Savage is a retired engineer and business executive.
Also running on the GOP side is Ricci Mason, a retired police officer in Cobb County. The only Democrat to announce thus far is South Cobb Commissioner Lisa Cupid.
Boyce was elected in 2016 after initially running in 2012. Savage also ran in 2012 and 2016.
More information about the event and the candidates can be found by clicking here.
The forum is free and open to the public, but you’re asked to RSVP via e-mail: jimtjess@outlook.com.
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U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath is endorsing former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
McBath, a first-term Democrat from Marietta who represents the 6th Congressional District of Georgia, said Wednesday that Bloomberg “has given mothers like me a way to fight back against gun violence.
“I’m proud to stand with him in this race. He will win this election, and work with Congress to pass common sense gun safety laws.”
McBath’s 17-year-old son was shot and killed by a man with a gun at a Florida gas station in 2012. The man, who got a life sentence, had complained about loud music coming from a car in which the boy was sitting.
That launched her advocacy for gun-control, and eventually led to her Congressional run in 2018, when she defeated incumbent Karen Handel.
Handel, a Republican, is campaigning to get her seat back, but McBath has a significant fundraising advantage.
According to The Washington Post, McBath received $1.25 million in her 2018 campaign from Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, a political-action committee co-founded and substantially funded by Bloomberg. The AJC has reported that’s part of around $4.5 million Bloomberg-affiliated gun control groups spent to elect McBath.
Bloomberg has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on television ads but didn’t enter the Iowa Caucuses or the New Hampshire Primary.
He is campaigning in Georgia, which has a presidential primary March 24.
McBath’s endorsement has stirred some controversy. Charles Blow, a columnist at The New York Times, accused her in a social media posting of being bought by Bloomberg.
A conservative group, Americans for Public Trust, has filed ethics complaints against McBath and other House Democrats, according to Fox News.
The complaint against McBath claims that she was a public spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety as a paid employee while she was campaigning for Congress.
During his time as New York mayor, Bloomberg came under fire for supporting “stop and frisk” policing that was opposed by many black community leaders.
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East Cobb resident Jason Marbutt, a prosecutor in the Cobb District Attorney’s office, said Tuesday he is running for a vacant seat on the Cobb Superior Court.
Schuster announced his retirement from the bench earlier this week.
“As a career prosecutor and Chairman of the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force, I believe my experience in protecting our most vulnerable citizens, our mothers and fathers, and our grandmothers and grandfathers, is best suited for the Superior Court bench,” Marbutt said in a statement.
Superior Court judges preside over violent crimes and other felony cases. Judgeships are non-partisan and elections are held every four years.
Schuster is the second Cobb Superior Court Judge to step down this year, along with Lark Ingram, who is retiring after serving since November 1995.
Cobb has 10 Superior Court judges. Other sitting judges up for re-election this year include Chief Judge Reuben Green and judges Kim Childs, Greg Poole, Mary Staley and Tain Kell.
Qualifying for those and other candidates in Cobb and across Georgia is from March 2-6.
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A longtime PTA leader in the Lassiter High School community is the latest candidate for the Post 5 seat on the Cobb Board of Education.
Tammy Andress, currently a Lassiter PTSA co-president, said last week she is running as a Democrat for the seat held by three-term Republican David Banks.
Andress is a marketing specialist at the Sandy Plains Road Zaxby’s, and is the mother of three daughters—one is a 2018 Lassiter graduate, and the other two currently are Lassiter students.
She has held PTA leadership roles at Davis Elementary School and Mabry Middle School—her daughters’ previous schools—as well as Lassiter. Andress also is a current vice president of the East Cobb County Council of PTAs.
She said she’s running for the school board to improve transparency with the public, boost teacher planning time and to ensure fiscal responsibility.
Andress also supports the building of a college and career academy in the East Cobb area, similar to what’s under construction now at Osborne High School (read her platform).
Other initiatives include creating “student stakeholders” to address issues like bullying. She also wants the Cobb County School District to create the position of Chief Resource Officer to better scrutinize budget allotments and contracts to root out waste and discover inequities.
Andress wants to restore public comments by school board members at meetings, a practice that was banned last fall in a contentious dispute that fell along party lines.
The primary is May 19, and the Post 5 seat thus far has drawn the most interest of the four Cobb school board races up for election this year.
Banks is seeking a fourth term representing Post 5—which includes the Lassiter and Pope clusters—and has drawn three GOP primary challengers. They include Delta pilot Shelley O’Malley, attorney Rob Madayag and IT consultant Matt Harper.
A forum for the Post 5 candidates is being held March 15 and sponsored by the Pope PTSA. It will start at 3 p.m. at the Pope performing arts theater.
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East Cobb resident Kevin Nicholas, a member of the Development Authority of Cobb County, has launched a bid for the District 2 seat on the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
A software development and technology professional, he’s the fourth Republican to announce for the seat being vacated at the end of the year by retiring commissioner Bob Ott.
Nicholas also ran in the Republican primary for Post 6 on the Cobb Board of Education in 2014, and was defeated by then-incumbent Scott Sweeney.
Nicholas declared his intent to receive campaign contributions on Jan. 29, and on Friday made a brief statement on his Facebook page, saying “we face real challenges that have come along with the growth in Cobb for families like ours and the businesses we work with and support.”
East Cobb News has left a message seeking more details about his candidacy. Nicholas said in that same message that “we need to look forward and prepare for the eventuality of change while embracing values which support our community and make it a forever home for our children and grandchildren. . . I am passionate to continue serving you – not the establishment or special interests.”
District 2 includes most of East Cobb as well as the Vinings/Cumberland area. Ott was first elected in 2008, and said last month he would not be seeking a fourth term.
The seven Cobb Development Authority members are appointed by county commissioners and consider economic development initiatives and incentives, including tax abatements for redeveloped land.
In recent years, their votes on tax incentives have come under increasing scrutiny.
Nicholas was one of two votes against a measure in 2018 to provide $35 million in revenue bonds for a Kroger superstore at the MarketPlace Terrell Mill project currently under construction on Powers Ferry Road.
The Development Authority’s vote in favor of those abatements was challenged legally by East Cobb resident Larry Savage, and a retired Cobb judge ruled against the bonds being issued.
However, Kroger and the Development Authority appealed the ruling, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the abatements last summer.
Nicholas’ term on the Development Authority was due to expire in March 2021.
Another GOP commission candidate, Andy Smith of East Cobb, announced on Monday his intent to accept campaign contributions. He’s been Ott’s appointee to the Cobb Planning Commission since 2018.
The other Republican candidates are entrepreneur Fitz Johnson of Vinings, who announced last week, and East Cobb resident Shane Deyo, an Army veteran and software consultant.
Savage is running for the third time for Cobb Commission Chairman, and is the only Republican thus far challenging incumbent Mike Boyce in the primary. Savage also ran in 2012 and 2016.
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If you want to vote in the March 24 presidential primary in Georgia and aren’t a registered voter, you’ll have until Feb. 24 to do so.
You can check your registration status or file an online registration form by clicking herewith the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.
While Democratic voters will have several hopefuls to choose from, the Republican ballot will have only one name—incumbent President Donald Trump.
In Cobb County, some polling precinct locations have changed, including several in East Cobb, as noted last month. The Cobb Board of Elections formally approved those changes last week.
Advance voting in the presidential primary starts March 2; full schedule here.
The deadline to register for the May 19 general primary—which includes Congressional, state and local offices—is April 20.
Last week, Cobb Elections formally adopted filing fees for candidates running for local office. Qualifying for various judgeships, county commission, county school board, court clerks, sheriff and tax commissioner is March 2-6.
This year, Georgia is rolling out new voting machines that includes a paper balloting system, and they will be used initially for the presidential primary.
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Some more political campaign news to round up here, after yesterday’s announcement of a Democratic candidate for the Cobb Board of Education Post 5 race:
The battle to succeed Bob Ott on the Cobb Board of Commissioners gained a Republican candidate last week. T. Fitz Johnson, a Vinings resident, filed a declaration of intent to accept campaign contributions.
Johnson is CEO of ASID Group International, a prison healthcare company, and was a GOP candidate for Georgia Superintendent of Schools in 2014. His community service work includes serving on the WellStar Health System Board of Trustees and the board of the Cobb Hospital Authority.
A former collegiate wrestler at The Citadel, Johnson is a military veteran and was the owner of the Atlanta Beat women’s professional soccer team from 2009-11.
He’s the third Republican to announce after Ott’s decision not to seek a fourth term to represent District 2, which includes some of East Cobb and the Smyran-Vinings area. The others are East Cobb residents Shane Deyo, an Army veteran and software consultant, and Andy Smith, Ott’s appointee to the Cobb Planning Commission.
Smith hasn’t formally declared his candidacy and will have to resign from the planning board once he does.
Last week, East Cobb real estate agent Pamela Reardon told the MDJshe would be running too, as a Republican. On Monday, however, she left a message on the Cobb Central Facebook page that she has decided against that, citing stress and a previous bout with cancer.
The only Democrat to announce for the District 2 seat thus far is Jerica Richardson, who campaigned for current Cobb school board member Jaha Howard.
6th District Congress update
After several Republican candidates withdrew for the 6th Congressional District seat before the holidays, another has jumped into the fray.
Mykel Barthelemey, who runs Barthelemy Commercial Capital in Atlanta with her husband, is the third GOP hopeful seeking to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath.
Barthelemey, who hails from Louisiana, was a sub-contractor for the Small Business Administration in Atlanta and was involved in the Reform Party. She’s the author of a new book, “Trump Is Not A Racist! Here’s Why” and is the founder of Coming Out Red USA, a grassroots conservative organization.
In her mission statement, she said Trump is “the greatest President in the history of our country that ever lived” and that “I’m the Left’s worst nightmare because my nonconformity destroys their narrative.”
The 6th District includes East Cobb, North Fulton and Sandy Springs and North DeKalb.
Dem roundtable on crime, opioids
Next week two Democratic candidates will hold a roundtable event in East Cobb on criminal justice reform and opioids.
The roundtable takes place next Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 6 p.m., at Seed Kichen and Bar (1311 Johnson Ferry Road)
The hosts are Sarah Riggs Amico, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican David Perdue, and Jimmy Herndon, a candidate for Cobb County Sheriff.
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She is a physical therapist with the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation facility in Atlanta for people with spinal cord and brain injuries.
Hurtado said on her campaign website that she is running “to build a coalition between teachers, parents, and students, and to help our community keep up with our changing world.”
Hurtado and her husband, David Hurtado, an attorney, moved to the Atlanta area 12 years ago to attend Emory graduate school. They have been in Cobb County for the last eight years and live in the Sedalia Park Elementary School attendance zone.
Post 5 includes the Lassiter and Pope attendance zones; Hightower Trail, Simpson and Mabry middle schools; and Davis, East Side, Eastvalley, Garrison Mill, Mountain View, Murdock, Powers Ferry, Sedalia Park, Shallowford Falls and Tritt elementary schools.
Republican David Banks is completing his third term representing Post 5 on the school board, and announced recently he is seeking re-election.
Three other Republican candidates have declared: Delta pilot Shelley O’Malley, attorney Rob Madayag and IT consultant Matt Harper (previous ECN post here).
Banks has said his goals for a fourth term include expanding STEM programs in East Cobb schools, including the addition of an arts component; continued support for the Cobb Teaching and Learning System that provides real-time assessments of academic progress; and to push for more teachers and better compensation when funding is available.
Hurtado said that in a county that’s becoming more diverse, “I want to amplify all of these voices in our community to ensure that every student’s needs are met,” and that her specific objectives will be to “focus on equal access, opportunity, and success for all students.”
Four of the seven posts on the Cobb school board are up for grabs this year; Post 5 is the only one in East Cobb. Republicans hold a 4-3 majority.
The general primary in Cobb and Georgia is May 19.
Post 5 map
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Updating last week’s post about precinct changes in Cobb, including a few in East Cobb: Those measures got final approval on Monday by the Cobb Board of Elections.
But the head of the Cobb County Democratic Committee and a Democratic candidate for a State House seat in East Cobb objected, saying they were made with little time to spare before the March presidential primary and the general primary in May.
They spoke during the public comment portion of the Cobb Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday. The precinct changes will affect 43,000 registered voters in Cobb.
The changes come as Cobb and other counties in Georgia will be installing new voting machines for the 2020 elections, and with turnout expected to be high in a presidential election year.
Cobb voters will go to the polls in the presidential primary March 24, with early voting from March 2-20.
Jackie Bettadapur of East Cobb, the county Democratic chairwoman, said she and the party’s appointed member of the elections board attend those meetings regularly, but “none of us were aware that these changes were planned.”
Making such changes on a “short notice, just under the wire” basis “has the makings of a perfect storm.”
Nine precinct changes were made, as the Cobb elections office is gradually moving away from schools for security reasons. Three of those changes are in East Cobb:
The Dickerson precinct will now be at the Lutheran Church of the Incarnation (1200 Indian Hills Parkway);
The Dodgen precinct will relocate to the Episcopal Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (1795 Johnson Ferry Road);
The Marietta 6A precinct at Lockheed Elementary School is moving to the Redeemed Christian Church of God-Heaven’s Gate Church (816 Pickens Industrial Drive).
In addition, the Bells Ferry 3 precinct was divided, with a new Bells Ferry 4 precinct being created. Around 3,500 voters will be voting in the new precinct, located at Shiloh Hills Baptist Church (75 Hawkins Store Road). Bells Ferry 3 voters will remain at Noonday Baptist Church (4120 Canton Road).
“I just think it’s too close to the election,” said Caroline Holko, a Democrat who’s running for the State House District 45 seat in Northeast Cobb, and who ran for Cobb commission District 3 in 2018. “I haven’t seen a real plan to notify voters of the changes and why.”
Janine Eveler, the Cobb elections supervisor, told commissioners that voters whose precinct locations have changed, or who have been moved into new precincts, will get new precinct cards in the mail.
In addition, she said they will get a first-class letter delivered to their home address, and that signs will be posted at old precinct locations.
South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid, the only Democrat on the five-member board, voted against all three agenda items to split precincts, saying she wanted to see “some actual data to show that there’s a true problem . . . at this point in time.”
East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said the board “doesn’t need to get into the minutiae” of elections board business, and Cupid snapped back.
“If it was to be a rubber stamp it wouldn’t come here,” she said. “This is a proper forum to have these discussions.”
With the approved precinct relocations, Eveler said roughly half of the 60 precincts at schools have moved.
She said there won’t be any more precinct changes this year, but that the process will continue in 2021.
Other recent precinct changes and new locations in East Cobb include:
Addison 1, Legacy Church (1040 Blackwell Road);
Bells Ferry 2, Christ Worship Center (3393 Canton Road);
Blackwell 1, Northeast Cobb Community Center (3100 Jaycee Drive);
Davis 1, Mountain View UMC (2300 Jamerson Road);
Elizabeth 2, Covenant Presbyterian Church (2881 Canton Road);
Garrison Mill, Unity North Church (4255 Sandy Plains Road);
Hightower 1, Woodstock Church Shallowford (3662 Shallowford Road);
Lassiter 1, Pilgrimage Church of Christ (3755 Sandy Plains Road);
Mabry 1, Hope Presbyterian Church (4101 Sandy Plains Road);
McCleskey 1, Shallowford Free Will Baptist Church (1686 Shallowford Road);
Nicholson 1, East Cobb Baptist Church (1940 Shallowford Road);
Pope 1, East Cobb Senior Center (3332 Sandy Plains Road);
Shallowford Falls 1, Harmony Grove Baptist Church (4207 Shallowford Road);
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Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott announced Tuesday he would be retiring at the end of the year. Last night, he distributed the text of his prepared statement that he made during the commission business meeting:
It’s hard to believe this is the 12th year I have had the honor and privilege to serve the people of District Two. As I reflect on those years during the holidays, I am so thankful for all of the people who help me every day. None of this would be possible without the support of my best friend; my wife Judy. She along with Katie and Chris continue to accept the late nights and weekend phone calls that come with this job. I also need to recognize all the volunteers and appointees who have accepted appointments to the numerous commissions and boards. Without them, Kim and I wouldn’t be able to serve the citizens of District Two. Many of them are now the chairs of their respective groups. Together, we were able to accomplish so much for our citizens. The challenges started early, and the group showed it was ready and willing to jump right in. In 2009, we had the great flood. Less than nine months after starting as the commissioner, the county experienced what the experts say was a 750-year flood event. Parts of the district were under over 20-feet of water. The Chattahoochee River crested at 29-feet above flood stage. The citizens of the district, especially those along Columns Drive and in Vinings needed help. County staff literally came to their rescue. There couldn’t have been a worse time, as the county was feeling the effect of the Great Recession. Budget numbers went south, the county instituted furloughs, much to my disappointment. To many county employees it was a wake-up call that even Cobb County wasn’t immune to the devastating impact of the recession. But out of all the down times, we got the commissioners to agree to the creation of a Citizens’ Oversight Committee. They were tasked to look at all aspects of the county operations and recommend where things could be done a better way. Thank you to all the members of that committee. Although it took some time for all the proposals to work their way into the system, eventually, the county started to pull out of the recession. Along with the recovery, there was a new SPLOST proposal, that for the first time was not the usual six years of questionable spending. With the help of Commissioner Powell, we cut the SPLOST to a four-year list of projects saving over $200 million. The Braves will begin their fourth season at the new ballpark, soon to be renamed, Truist. As the new season begins, ThyssenKrupp’s new tower is beginning to rise, and the final phase of The Battery is nearing completion. These successes will bring more opportunity to the district. I look forward to what the future will bring to the county and the district. So, today, I am officially announcing that I will not be running for re-election in November and will be retiring from the commission at the end of the year. I want to thank all of the citizens of District Two for allowing me the honor and the privilege of serving as your commissioner.
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Mykel Barthelemey, who runs Barthelemy Commercial Capital in Atlanta with her husband, is the third GOP hopeful seeking to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath.
