Cobb Education SPLOST VI referendum voters guide Archives

Cobb Education SPLOST VI

UPDATED, TUESDAY, NOV. 2, 7:40 P.M.: The polls have closed. Follow real-time results by clicking here.

ORIGINAL POST:

All the early voting has been completed for the 2021 elections in Cobb County, which feature municipal races in the six cities in the county and a referendum on whether to extend a sales tax for public schools.

Those who will be voting on Tuesday will go to their assigned precinct (if you don’t know where it is, you can check here and get a sample ballot).

The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and if you are in line when the polls close you will be able to vote.

UPDATE, TUESDAY, 1:03 P.M.: Eight precincts, including two in East Cobb, will be open past 7 p.m. due to technical issues at those polls.

Cobb Elections said that 10,104 people voted in two weeks of early voting across Cobb County, including 2,038 at The Art Place in Northeast Cobb.

That’s the second-highest figure for any early voting location, after the main Cobb Elections office. On Friday, 349 people voted at The Art Place.

Citizens living in unincorporated Cobb County will have only one item on their ballots (above): the Cobb Education SPLOST VI, a one-percent sales tax for school construction, maintenance and technology to be collected from 2024-2029.

The tax would collect $894 million for the Cobb County School District, (our summary story from May; full project notebook here).

The main projects in Cobb include a rebuild of the main Sprayberry High School building and classroom additions at Kincaid, Mt. Bethel, Murdock, Sope Creek and Tritt elementary schools.

Cobb voters haven’t rejected a school SPLOST since the first referendum in 1998, but Cobb superintendent Chris Ragsdale has been actively defending the sales tax and how the money has been distributed following criticism of school district finances.

In 2017, Cobb voters overwhelmingly approved the current SPLOST V referendum, with 73.8 percent voting yes.

Turnout has typically been light for the Ed-SPLOST. In 2017, only 7.7 of registered Cobb voters took part, with 25,019 voting yes and 8,902 voting no. Some of the highest turnout has been in East Cobb.

Voters in the cities of Acworth, Austell, Kennesaw, Powder Springs and Smyrna also will have the Cobb Ed-SPLOST VI question on their ballots pertaining to the Cobb school district, as well as their city council elections.

For voters in the City of Marietta, they’ll get a school sales tax referendum question on their ballots too, since Marietta City Schools would collect $71.5 million if it is approved.

Marietta voters also deciding school board and city council members in their respective wards, as well as a contested mayor’s race in non-partisan elections.

Incumbent Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin is seeking a fourth term, but is being challenged by Michelle Cooper Kelly, a city council member whose ward includes much of East Marietta.

As we noted earlier in the week, if you have an absentee ballot that hasn’t been mailed (and you shouldn’t, since it won’t get to the Cobb Elections office by the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline), you’ll need to drop it off at a designated location.

There aren’t the outdoor dropboxes as there were in 2020; here’s a list of where and when you can do this.

Those absentee locations include the East Cobb Library (4880 Lower Roswell Road) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday.

For questions and for more information, visit cobbcounty.org/elections email info@cobbelections.org, or call 770-528-2581.