COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Remington Phillips said he waited an hour in line at the Cobb County Elections headquarters just to cast his ballot on the last day of early in-person voting in Georgia.
"My opinion matters, my perspective matters and my family matter," Phillips said. "I just try to understand the human aspect of everything and again make sure I’m respecting the people who are working.”
For those unable to make it to the polls in person, there's absentee by mail. More than 3,000 Cobb County voters who requested mail-in ballots hadn't gotten them. Caitlin May is a voting rights staff attorney with the ACLU of Georgia, one of the groups that petitioned a Cobb County superior court judge to extend the timeline to turn in the mail-in ballots for those who had them delayed.
Impacted voters must send their absentee ballots in with a postmark by 7 p.m. on Election Day, November 5. The county can then accept those ballots until 5 p.m. on November 8.
“A lot of these people on the list aren’t able to vote in person and that’s why they requested an absentee ballot in the first place," May said. “We’ve helped a lot of first time voters, college students voted for the first time, so that’s a really big piece of building trust in our democratic system. The next piece is getting through election day and getting the results certified in each county.”
Earlier in the week, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger denounced a fake video containing misinformation that seemingly showed a Haitian immigrant claiming to have voted multiple times. Sung Yeon Choimorrow is the executive director of the National Asian Pacific-American Women's Forum. She said despite some election snags and misinformation; voters are still showing confidence in the system by voting in record numbers in Georgia.
“While these stories may be unsettling, we see many folks have already gone to the polls,” Choimorrow said. "They believe it’s our duty to participate and be involved civically if we want to change the circumstances we live in, we need to get involved.”
The Secretary of State's Office sent 11Alive the following statement:
"In Georgia, ballot boxes are not left unattended -they’re inside a county building and covered by security cameras.
This election looks to be very close and people are voting in record numbers across Georgia. This office has spent all year preparing for this election -we have the most accurate and up-to-date voter registration lists of any state in the country, we require a photo ID for all forms of voting, our ballots are printed on security paper (this year with a watermark as well). We’ve prepped local offices and local law enforcement for contingencies on election day -everything from power outages to weather events to unrest caused by bad actors- as well as our federal partners at CISA and the Homeland.
People should know that election security is Secretary Raffensperger’s number one priority, and that our election workers have planned for any emergencies or disruptions planned by anyone seeking to sow chaos, fear or doubt about our process. This election is likely going to be close -but it WILL be accurate, fair, and secure."
Remington Phillips said the election process could be simpler, but he said he trusts it to count his vote, along with the workers themselves.
"Yeah, I do trust it, I do trust it," Phillips said. "I try to be personable, and we’re all human."