East Cobb cityhood referendum not on some ballots

Early voting in Cobb County hit a snag this week when some voters in East Cobb noticed their ballot did not include the East Cobb cityhood referendum.

According to the Cobb County elections office, elections workers discovered on Monday morning that the Secretary of State’s office had not provided the county’s latest database to the vendor that handles the poll pads used by precinct workers.

The discovery came after several people notified poll managers they didn’t receive the correct ballot.

After a quick investigation, elections officials found the database had not been updated and put a workaround in place that allowed poll workers to manually bring up the correct precinct ballot on the ballot marking device.

This resulted in a slower process, but there was not a crush of voters at the impacted locations and no long lines resulted. 

The vendor worked with the Secretary of State’s office to receive and download the database update and new poll pads were expected at the locations by the end of the day.

The elections department is reminding voters to check the ballots that appear on the touchscreens and immediately notify poll workers if something appears on the ballot that is unexpected or they believe is missing.

According to the East Cobb Cityhood group, voters reported having either the wrong question on the ballot or not having the cityhood question at all. The referendum should appear on the ballot for residents who live within the boundaries of the proposed city of East Cobb.

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