Board Member 1 opened the Nov. 7 pre-certification meeting of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration and apologized to voters at Thompson Community Center, saying, "We will do better," before asking elections staff to give a presentation on outstanding ballots.

Michael, elections staff, told the board provisional ballot processing began at about 2:00 a.m. and provided counts: 220 election-day provisional ballots, 1 provisional from advance voting and 15 by mail; he said 182 of the election-day provisionals will be processed. He said voters have until 5:00 p.m. to cure provisional ballots, after which staff will upload final results.

Staff described a set of small discrepancies between the numbers shown as "ballots cast" and the Jarvis credit totals. "We have all the documentation and all the evidence to prove that everything happened correctly," Michael said, explaining one example: a voter at the Vining's O2 polling place experienced a pollbook glitch that prevented the Jarvis credit from immediately reflecting the vote while the paper ballot was processed.

Michael also described an advance-voting case during the overlap week at Taylor Bronner where an 18-year-old voter was eligible for a statewide contest but did not meet the registration deadline for a local contest; that produced a one-ballot difference between ballots cast and credit in the contest totals. He said staff had contact information and were attempting to reach the voter to confirm eligibility and cure if needed.

On absentee-by-mail totals, staff noted one cured provisional ballot had been included in a credit figure that makes the reported statistic off by one (1,174 shown vs. 1,173 actual in the breakdown); staff said the underlying record will reconcile once uploads from polling locations are received. Separately, staff described one absentee ballot that lacked precinct coding and the identifying top/bottom coding; because the ballot lacked any precinct identifiers or coding information it could not be duplicated and will not be counted, even though the process had earlier issued credit to the ballot during intake.

Board members asked staff to follow up with Janine (elections staff) and to provide the numbered list from the polling place that showed the Vining's O2 glitch. Michael agreed to seek the numbered list and said the county would forward it when available.

On recount rules, Michael said the losing candidate may request a recount within two days after certification if the margin is below 0.5 percent; staff clarified certification is the formal trigger and acknowledged they were uncertain about how long it can take to schedule the recount once requested. "There's two days after certification where the candidate can request the recount as long as the threshold is smaller than 0.5," Michael said.

Board members and staff also discussed one race that could be affected by outstanding provisionals: the Marietta Ward 5 council race. Michael said the outstanding provisionals could determine whether the race goes to a runoff; he estimated a candidate would need about four additional votes to avoid a runoff based on the outstanding numbers but cautioned that a full precinct breakout is required to know which ballots apply to Ward 5.

The board scheduled its certification meeting for Monday at 3:00 p.m. in the Board of Commissioners Room and directed staff to provide the numbered list from the polling site when it is received. The board approved the meeting agenda earlier in the session by voice vote and adjourned at approximately 3:19 a.m.

Because the issues described by staff involve small numeric discrepancies, a handful of provisional ballots and a limited number of potentially dispositive ballots in one local race, staff said the county expects the totals to reconcile after receiving the polling-site numbered list and after the 5:00 p.m. cure deadline.