The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration on Nov. 18 certified the results of the Nov. 4 municipal election and the statewide Public Service Commission race, approving both motions by unanimous 5–0 votes.

Director Michael presented final tallies, saying ballots cast on election day totaled 84,840 and that advanced in-person voting accounted for 39,979 votes. Staff reported 1,233 absentee-by-mail returns, of which they accepted 1,174 and rejected 59. Michael explained the apparent mismatch between the absentee "numbered list" and ballots cast: one returned absentee ballot was unscannable because precinct-identifying codes were missing, and one provisional cure was handled separately, producing a small difference between the numbered list and ballots counted.

"We did have reports of seven abandoned ballots — when a voter leaves a ballot at the printer — and that explains seven of the discrepancies, leaving us with eight still under review," Michael said. He described additional reconciliation work and scheduled a risk-limiting audit (RLA) and an enhanced image-ballot review to ensure optical-scan tallies match recorded results.

Board member (identified in meeting materials) raised a separate concern about voter-roll and numbered-list comparisons, noting a late email identifying 47 records with irregularities. "None of them would have affected the outcome of the election," the board member said, but recommended staff investigate anomalies such as active voters listed as out-of-county or voters present on Jarvis versus the Secretary of State list.

Legal counsel and staff stressed that the county uses multiple reports (Jarvis and the vendor NoInc) during reconciliation, and that the official state "numbered list" is provided by NoInc. The board asked staff to continue reconciling the remaining eight ballots and to report results after the RLA. No formal change to the certification was withheld: the board certified both the municipal election and the PSC race that evening.

The board also announced the audit schedule: a risk-limiting audit to begin at 9 a.m. in the main advanced-voting room, with nine audit teams, plus an enhanced image-ballot review to cross-check scans against readable text.

Next steps: staff will complete the reconciliation on remaining discrepancies, run the RLA and report findings to the board. The board directed staff to continue outreach to clarify any voter-roll oddities identified in the post-election comparison.