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Cobb County election office reports 10,000+ voters and disables poll‑pad map after address errors
Summary
Cobb County election staff reported more than 10,000 voters by mid‑evening and temporarily disabled a poll‑pad map feature after multiple reports that the map displayed incorrect polling‑place addresses; staff said they will require vendor fixes and add new checks before re‑enabling the feature.
Director Tate of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration reported that the office crossed 10,000 voters for the day, saying, “Looks like we just crossed over 10,000 voters for the day. So we're at 10,031, subject to a few last minute trickle ins.” Later in the meeting staff reported an updated daily total of 10,066 and a combined total of 16,412 voters for the election day including absentee and early in‑person ballots.
The director told the board the county received multiple reports early in the day that the polling‑place map function in the vendor poll‑pad was showing incorrect addresses even though the precinct name displayed correctly. “No Inc disabled the map feature, and all the polling places had a hard copy of the correct addresses,” the director said, and poll managers used paper addresses to direct voters while staff and the vendor investigated.
Board members pressed for a longer‑term vendor fix and for added local quality assurance. One board member said the problem has occurred several times and urged that the county obtain a root‑cause analysis from the vendor and confirmation the error is resolved before re‑enabling the map feature. The director said the county will only relaunch the map after the vendor confirms the fix and that the feature will be tested on the scheduled poll‑pad syncing day (referred to in the meeting as “poll pad Saturday”).
Staff described interim steps the office would continue to use: disabling the map feature until it is confirmed fixed, providing hard‑copy address lists at polling places, and redeploying QR‑code sandwich boards (stanchions) so voters can consult the county’s MVP lookup from outside the enclosed check‑in area. The director said poll managers began notifying poll workers of the paper workaround within minutes of the first call and that no further map errors were reported after the map was disabled.
The board discussed adding address checks to the poll‑pad Saturday process; currently the county said it verifies that voters appear in the correct precinct but does not check whether the map displays the correct physical address. Staff said they will add address verification to the test until they have full confidence the vendor fix is reliable.
No formal action was taken on the map issue during the meeting; the board heard the director’s update and asked staff to continue coordinating with the vendor and the Georgia secretary of state’s office as needed. The meeting recessed while election results were tallied.
