The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration reported the discovery of 18 uncounted absentee ballots involving two elections.  

An internal investigation determined those ballots should have been counted but were not processed, and the information about this discovery was sent to the state.

Election board Chairwoman Tori Silas said that the unprocessed ballots would not have impacted the election results.

The county elections board reported to the State Elections Board that five absentee ballots for the May 2022 election and 13 absentee provisional ballots for the November 2022 general election were not opened and processed.  

“Even though this involves a small number of ballots, we take this issue very seriously,” Silas said. “We have made the Secretary of State’s office aware of our findings.  Following the 2022 election cycle, we made process improvements, including procedures to track and log ballots when the are received by the office.  The improvements are designed to catch and prevent mistakes such as these.”

According to the news release from the county, the issue came to the attention of Interim Director Gerry Miller and was reported to board members. 

About the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration

On its web page, the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration describes its mission as follows:

“The mission of the Elections Department is to register citizens of Cobb County to vote; to ensure that elections are free, impartial, fair, accurate, convenient and accessible to all voters; to encourage voter participation; to provide excellent customer service to voters, candidates, and the media; and to help the public understand and follow all laws, rules and regulations.

“The Elections Department, with oversight from the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, enforces strict adherence to all current Federal, State and Local laws as well as to State Election Board Rules concerning registering to vote and voting, and serves all citizens in election related matters.”

The board has five members, with two appointed by the state legislative delegation, one each appointed by the Cobb Democratic and Republican parties, and one appointed by the Chairwoman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners.

Since both the majority of the  legislative delegation and the BOC chairwomanship  is Democratic at this time, appointments by Democrats account for four of the five seats.

Here is the current composition of the board: