Four times as many ballots have been cast during the first week of voting in Cobb County for the 2020 general election as were cast during the same period in 2016.
Just over 31,000 people voted during the first six days of the last presidential election, including both returned mail ballots and early in-person ballots.
This year, Cobb Elections Director Janine Eveler said more than 135,000 ballots have been cast so far. Of those, 49,000 happened at one of the expanded early voting locations and another 86,000 mail ballots have been returned.
Kerwin Swint, head of the political science department at Kennesaw State University in Cobb, said he wasn’t surprised by the huge increase given the incredibly high interest in the presidential contest.
“This is a real base election,” Swint said. “There’s not a lot of persuasion going on; there’s a lot of mobilization going on.”
Swint added that there’s a lot of “negative voting” this year against the candidate people perceive as the greater threat.
Eveler also said wait times were down across the county for early voting after the state fixed its check-in system, which had been plagued by delays.
“The main thing we need to tell people is to bring back their absentee ballot if they received it, but want to vote in-person instead,” Eveler wrote in an email. “That takes much less time to cancel than if they don’t bring it with them.
“Although the lines are much shorter now, voters should bring with them anything they need for waiting; such as water, umbrella, chair, book etc,” she continued.
Voters can go to any location during early voting and can check wait times at the following website: https://cobbcountyga.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=1c3b458b93b3436db03c77cf585b23d2.
On Election day, voters must go to their assigned precinct.
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