Cobb sees big early voting turnout Monday

Nov. 29—WEST COBB — Cobb County saw a huge early voting turnout Monday, with 23,588 votes cast as of 5 p.m., ahead of the Dec. 6 U.S. Senate runoff.

With two hours left until polls were set to close, Monday had already seen more Cobb voters casting ballots than any single day of early voting for the Nov. 8 election.

Cobb's busiest day of early voting before the November election was Nov. 4, when 19,580 people voted.

About 181,500 Cobb Countians voted early in-person in the November election.

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the secretary of state's office, said Georgia broke its record for single-day early voting turnout on Monday. More than 239,000 Georgians had cast a ballot by 4:45 p.m., according to Sterling.

Early voting continues through Friday at a dozen locations across Cobb. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information, see cobbcounty.org/elections.

All Georgia counties are required to offer early voting this week. A couple dozen counties, including Cobb, also opted to offer voting over the weekend.

Cobb saw nearly 13,700 votes cast in person over the weekend — 6,213 on Saturday and 7,473 on Sunday.

Cobb Elections Director Janine Eveler said her staff had been "very busy" Monday.

Monday morning, the county's live wait time tracker showed some voting sites, such as Collar Park Community Center and East Cobb Government Center, with short waits of 15 minutes or less. Other sites, however, had longer waits of 45 minutes (Smyrna Community Center) or 75 minutes (Ben Robertson Community Center).

Eveler said the worst wait was at the Ron Anderson Recreation Center in Powder Springs, where the wait reached two hours at one point. That wait was caused in part, she said, by a technical issue with a Poll Pad, an electronic tablet used to check in voters.

By 6 p.m., the wait at the Ron Anderson Center was an hour, according to the live timing map. Five other locations had waits of 20-40 minutes, and six locations had waits of 20 minutes or less.

Cobb Elections has issued at least 22,759 absentee ballots, according to the county. Of those, at least 626 have been returned.

Monday was the last day to request an absentee ballot. In the November election, 30,725 were issued.

Due to the short turnaround between the general election and the runoff, Eveler said she recommends people vote in person if they are able.

"It's really rough to get everything out in time for people to get it back to us," she said of absentee ballots. "It's not something I would recommend to anybody at this point."

In the Nov. 8 election, Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, finished first with 49.4% of the vote. Republican Herschel Walker received 48.5% and Libertarian Chase Oliver received 2.1%.

A runoff between Warnock and Walker was triggered because no candidate received more than 50% of the vote.

Senate Bill 202, the law passed last year which overhauled Georgia's election system, shortened the state's runoff period from nine weeks to four weeks. That also meant a shorter early voting period. This runoff has five mandatory days of early voting, though Cobb opted to offer seven days.

In the January 2021 Senate runoffs that saw Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff elected, there were three weeks of early voting (voting was not offered on several weekdays during that period, due to the Christmas and New Year's holidays).

Monday at the Ward Recreation Center in west Cobb, a line of voters snaked out the door and down the side of the building. Voters leaving the polling place told the MDJ around noon that they had waited roughly 20 minutes.

Cecilia McCloud of Powder Springs said she didn't mind waiting that long. A retiree, she typically votes early.

"There are a lot of reasons," to vote in the runoff, she said. "Democracy, just a lot of issues, qualifications. ... It's a lovely day, sunny and not too cold. It's a good day to come out and vote."

Vickie Hutchins of Powder Springs cast her ballot Monday, since she plans to be out of town on Election Day. She likewise reported a 20-minute wait and said the process was smooth.

"I feel like it's important to vote in every election," Hutchins said. "Not all countries have that freedom. And you can vote for who your heart tells you to. And there's no recompense for that. And I think that that freedom is very, very dear."