By: Heather Thompson
In case you live under a rock, Donald J. Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and it has been the most relieving moment for anyone who worked hard to get out the vote and tell Americans why it’s important to cast a ballot in any election. Personally, I have been working tirelessly to help inform voters of the truth and let them make their decision at the ballot box.
On Tuesday, I had the privilege to be a poll watcher at a Cobb County precinct from lunch time until the polls closed, and the ballots were on their way to be counted. This was the first time I had been a poll watcher, and honestly, I was worried because the stories of bomb threats and hostile poll managers were filling up my poll watcher group chat before I even got there.
When I arrived, the manager was a weary of my presence, but she had everything set up for me and the whole polling area looked great. It was very clear that the poll manager, assistant managers and workers took pride in what they were doing.
Most of the day was slow, with small pockets of voters, but what makes poll watching hard is that you aren’t allowed to interact with voters and are advised to only speak with the poll manager. So, while the workers were joking around and having a good time, I didn’t speak much simply because I didn’t want to be kicked out of the office for doing something wrong. You see a poll manager can eject a poll watcher if the watcher is not obeying the rules of the polling location. It’s important that poll watchers know and obey the rules because they are not in charge, the poll manager is.
Kindness went a long way while I was there, and I kept interacting with the poll manager to ensure that she knew I wasn’t there to nitpick. There was some hostility because poll watchers are looked at as the police, and to be honest, there were a couple comments sent in my direction about “how can we not believe elections are secure”. However, what I noticed about the entire process – particularly of shutting down the machines – is how cumbersome it was, and I wondered if the machines made it harder rather than easier.
Overall, Cobb County had a nearly 78% voter turnout with 404,710 people casting a ballot according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s website. Trump won the state of Georgia by 50.7%, but lost Cobb County with 42% of the vote versus Kamala Harris’s nearly 57%.
One thing to note is that Georgia never has enough poll watchers – whether Republican or Democrat – and that is a failing on the part of anyone who believes in election integrity. We have a system in place that affords us the opportunity to take part in the election process and if we don’t use it to the fullest extent possible, that isn’t anyone’s fault but our own.
I highly encourage anyone who believes in election integrity to volunteer as a poll watcher or become a paid poll worker at least once to truly understand how our electoral process works. We, as Americans, need to be involved and educated in order to help secure our elections in the future.
