Beverly Hall of Marietta hands her ballot card to poll worker Mickey Scandlyn of Marietta on Friday morning during the last day of early voting at the East Cobb Government Center.
Staff/Laura Moon
Staff/Laura Moon
There are 396,416 registered voters in Cobb for the July 31 primary. And for those closely watching the actual vote results on Tuesday night, there will be some changes. Cobb’s results will not be updated on the county’s website or cable channel on Tuesday night. Rather, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office has a new Election Night Reporting tool on its website that will provide a single results page for the entire state.
The website for results is www.sos.ga.gov/Elections.
“Our Agency’s new ENR system is a great resource for Georgia voters,” Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, said in a news release this week about the Election Night Reporting. “Information will be distributed efficiently, be interactive, and be able to be broken down to the precinct level.”
Janine Eveler, director of Cobb County Elections, expressed support for the new process.
“We are very confident that the new system will work; the vendor operates in several states already,” she told the Journal via email.
On Friday, the last day of early voting, the tight contest over whether to raise the sales tax for transportation in metro Atlanta continued to draw local residents to the polls.
In east Cobb, voters the Journal spoke to were unanimously against the TSPLOST, whereas in south Cobb, reviews were mixed. None of the voters interviewed spoke passionately about who they supported for county chairman.
Nancy and Vick Mitchell live in the Atlanta Country Club neighborhood.
“We voted no to the TSPLOST,” Vick Mitchell said. “We don’t trust the money. Too much has happened in the state of Georgia where money is squandered. Projects in Cobb and the city of Atlanta have not been able to be trusted.”
In south Cobb, voters said they would like to see the results of the 1 percent tax increase.
Friends Betty Ferguson and Leota Rollins, senior citizens who both live in Mableton and voted together on Friday, said they want transportation in Cobb to be improved.
“The TSPLOST is the fairest tax and I think it is good,” Ferguson said.
Added Rollins: “We need everyone’s money to clean up our roads.”
Arretta Gilbert, 63, lives in Austell and said south Cobb is in sore need of transportation improvement.
“I think the TSPLOST is good because the roads in this county need improving, especially in south Cobb,” Gilbert said. “It’s ridiculous.”
Smyrna resident Richard Hembree, 44, cast his vote in south Cobb against the TSPLOST.
“It’s way too much money going with no accountability,” Hembree said. “Definitely a no.”
On Tuesday, polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. To find your voting location, go to www.mvp.sos.state.ga.us.
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No. Didn't think so.
The guy (Brian Kemp) who is responsible for authoring the very questionable ballot language for the TSPLOST referendum is going to be the person in charge of tallying the results of this referendum.
Is that correct?
Well that is awfully suspicious isn't it?
Based on that I predict a narrow margin of victory for the TSPLOST in Metro Atlanta.
This is a new system.
How incredibly convenient.
Those factors invite some hanky panky on the part of the people who control the vote counting.
For the most part they support the TSPLOST.
If the referendum passes in a very close vote ( like the very narrow and suspicious margin of victory for the last local TSPLOST in Cobb County) I, for one, will be very suspicious of the validity of the results.
I hate to be so cynical, but given the dubious tactics used by the TSPLOST supporters up to this point (i.e. Ballot language), the fact that a$8.5 BILLION pot of money is at stake and that the supporters (i.e. ARC, MAVEN, Citizens for Transportation Mobility etc.) have spent multi millions on a propaganda campaign filled with misinformation, half truths and outright falsehoods, I have to believe they will do whatever they can to rig the results in their favor.