Elections director reports readiness, staffing needs and voter counts ahead of November

Director Lee Phillips told the board that staff continue preparations for upcoming elections and that required deadlines are being met. He listed key dates (examples: Aug. 17 earliest day to request an absentee ballot for the November election; Oct. 5 registration and first non‑UOCAVA absentee mailing dates) and said the SPLOST question and Mableton referendum have been entered into the state voter-registration database and approved by the secretary of state.

Phillips reported Cobb County has 572,701 registered voters, of whom 519,486 are active and 53,215 inactive. He said staff had contacted 8,755 registered poll workers to confirm availability; 1,319 had marked themselves available for the November election and an additional 48 files were received from the secretary of state's office. On staffing, Phillips said the office is hiring for a GIS analyst (offer pending), a registration-division manager and a training supervisor. He described a business-continuity plan focused on backups and cross‑training and said staff are using Jarvis and a new registration-review workflow to flag potentially bad addresses for follow-up under OCGA 21-2-228.

Why it matters: These operational figures and hires affect the county's ability to staff polling places, maintain accurate rolls and run the election on schedule. Board members asked follow-up questions about how many poll workers are still needed and whether outreach spending is itemized; staff said they would provide additional detail.

Next steps: Staff will provide the specific poll-worker staffing targets and follow-up detail on outreach budgets to board members by request.