Cobb Elections mails out 75 incorrect absentee ballots

Early voting in the presidential primary ends March 8, and Election Day is March 12, so those voters impacted still have time to cast their votes. The department will also contact each impacted voter to inform them of the error.

The elections department had several blunders during the 2022 election year, including a failure to mail out over 1,000 absentee ballots to voters, prompting a lawsuit and emergency court hearing to extend the deadline. Other errors included incorrect redistricting coding, leaving some voters with the wrong ballot, and a lost memory card that, once scanned in, changed the results of a Kennesaw city council race.

The department underwent an internal audit last year and implemented new processes and checks to ensure any errors are caught quickly and can be resolved on the back end. Fall, who took over the department in December of last year, said she plans to improve the department’s processes using technology and other means to track absentee ballots at every step of the process.

Fall also began restructuring the department this year to split the absentee and advance voting division from the registration division so they each will have their own manager who can provide better oversight over each process.