Personalizing Democracy: A Conversation with the Cobb County Director of Elections

As the 2024 Presidential Election quickly approaches, citizens may own an understanding of the importance of voting, but may not grasp a significant stronghold of how intimate these processes can become. Voting, at its core, serves to re-instill humility within the bleakness of politics. By giving the people a voice, Americans can feel emboldened by their civic action, and future election seasons can be decorated by more hope, and less anxiety. This feeling does not only permeate in voting citizens — it flows through the veins of individuals that run our elections, too. Poll workers (a.k.a the Americans with, hands down, one of the most stressful jobs every four years) seek to ensure that elections stay free, fair, and accurate for any constituent. In a swing state like Georgia, the personalization of our civic engagement stands increasingly important due to the weight of votes in this election. Fortunately for the Peach State, several public servants excitedly look forward to ensuring the smoothness of this election. Through impactful conversations, Georgians — or any swing state citizens — can feel more confident about their democratic choices. 

For this article, I sat down with the Cobb County Director of Elections, Tate Fall, only three short days after early voting started within our state. Our interview covered both the personable and professional reasons as to why she entered into this field of work, and the essential nature of cohesive election workers.

Ciara Whimbush: Hello! So, what is your name, your job title in the county that you live in? 

Tate Fall: My name is Tate Fall and I'm the director of elections for Cobb County and I also live here in Cobb.

CW: Awesome. What exactly does your job require you to do? And how'd you end up in this role? 

TF: I oversee a large department, so we have 33 full-time employees, 31 part ten employees and up to 124 seasonal employees at one time. So we're responsible for all of the voter registration and execution of every election. So we do all of the federal statewide county elections, and then we also do all the municipal elections for our municipalities here in Cobb. So we do everything from voter registration to early voting to election day poll workers, equipment programming, all that good stuff. So we do kind of anything to do with voting. 

TF: I got into elections in grad school, so to Auburn, and I saidied, my undergrad was in rehabilitation and disability studies, and I wanted to do work with the Assistant District Attorney to make buildings more accessible for individuals. And I wanted to stay and get my master's. And so I decided to do the MPA program and the only research they had open was in elections. I always say, I'm sure you're too young to understand this reference, but [working in elections is like] the Hotel California when you check in, you never leave. And that's how it is. You people either love it or they don't and they leave. And so, um there's really got an in between. And I love it and um enjoy doing it every day. 

CW: That's so cool. I love how it was like you said I was the only one, but I'm glad you ended up falling in love with doing it. It would have been really unlucky.

TF: I don't think I'd be doing this anymore if I didn't love it because it's hard. 

CW: This is not a question I have [written down], but what can I ask, what makes it difficult? Why do people end up leaving this role? 

TF: I think what's tough with elections right now is just this division that we have. And I think that it's it's very exhausting to work so hard and put in so many hours in what we do and we have multiple elections a year and to have individuals that don't trust us that don't believe that what we're doing is honest, that believe that we're, you know, frauds or we're trying to steal or lie. That's exhausting. It's a lot on you mentally. It's very draining to put in that much work and just have your neighbors think that you're a liar is a lot. 

CW: My next question is, Georgia has seen record high numbers of early voter turnout this year. How have you personally seen the impacts of that thus far in Cobb County? 

TF: Yeah, on the first day, we did double what we did in 2020 and 2022. We had some wait times Tuesday morning, our first day. A lot of those uh first day back jitters, getting back in the swing of things, remembering how to do everything correctly. So we had some weight tennis, especially Tuesday morning, but that's really leveled off. And now that we were back in the rhythm of things, we're staying those weight times kind of sustain at a more normal level. And so the workers are really engaged and excited because the three elections we've had so far this year have been very low turnout elections and it's very tiring, you know, to do one voter every 20 minutes at the second station. You know, they're reading a book or, you know, sometimes they take Uno cards, like, you know, they kind of have to entertain themselves. So to be just so consistently busy is really energizing them and making them really, really excited, which is really fun to see. 

CW: How does an election day look for you? Walk me through like your thought process, like what you have to do. What would people not know? What would people not know about the behind the scenes of an election day process? What would you want people to know about it? 

TF: Well, most election officials always say that the day they run a perfect election is the day they'll retire, because when you have this many humans and this many locations, it's not going to be perfect. It's impossible. That's impossible. It just is. We have 148 voting locations. I'll have over 2,000 poll workers work on election day. There is no way every single one of them can be perfect because we're human. So, you know, what we try to focus on is minimizing the mistakes that are happening, you know, and not making sure that there's not a major mistake. Election day for me, I normally get to the office at around five. And then I get all the snacks set up, get the coffee going, and then I start getting calls pretty soon after that. um people with questions, facilities, all different kinds of things. It's a lot of putting out fires. um you know, whether it's a facility issue or staffing issue, whatever it is. And then at 7 AM, the polls open, so I have to make sure all the polling places are open on time. And if they don't, uh we have to get a court order allowing us to keep that pole in place open later. So as long as the place isn't open until 7:20 AM, they have to be open till 7:20 PM. They have to be open an extra 20 minutes. 

TF: It's [also] a lot of troubleshooting throughout the day. Voters will call and they'll only want to speak to me, so I talk to voters, and try to calm some of their fears that they may have or things that they think happened at the polling place that didn't. For example, I got a complaint last night of a voter who voted yesterday and they live, I believe in, the congressional district where Barry Loudermilk is the incumbent, but they said that both the race with Barry Loudmilk and the race with Marjorie Taylor Green that they were both on his ballot. Two different congressional district races on the state ballot, which is impossible. So I went on my computer at like 8:30 PM last night, pulled up the ballot for that precinct sentence to that person and showed them that that is not possible. That that's not what the ballot says and, you know, we would have caught that anyways if it did. So um so it's a lot of things like that.

CW: Wow. up, I didn't know that those were like such long days. 

TF: There's so much energy that your adrenaline carries you through that day. I actually think the hardest day is the next day coming into work and it's so much w quieter and the energy is so low. It's hard to get through that day. 

CW: And there's so much to build up to it as well. I imagine the days building up was like you're so much like tension and then you get to election day. It's like, oh my gosh, and they're like November 6, it's like, “what are you doing now, guys?” 

TF: There's so much paperwork and so many just administrative tasks that we have to do. I always tell people, you know, we don't work in politics. We're administrators. Everything we do is administrative, it's paper, it's filing, it's sorting, and that's a lot of really tedious work. It's not very fun. 

I have another question, what does that time look like for you guys? What does it look like for y'all in terms of your workload?

TF: Every [even] year typically we could have two or three elections and an odd year next year we'll probably have five or six. We have to do for some of the commissioner districts in Cobb to redistricting issues. We also have a statewide election for public service commissioner that we have to host in June and then we'll have municipal elections in November with a potential runoff in December. The odd years used to be kind of the reset year and the calmer year. Now they're not that way, because Cobb is growing and we have new municipalities. That's also when we have a lot of litigation and we're in court a lot from the previous year. So any lawsuits that are brought forward about this upcoming election, that'll all be litigated next year. I have to spend a lot of time in courtrooms, testifying, explaining why things happen and things like that. 

CW: I'm sure that sounds really fun.

TF: Yeah, it’s a lot. 

CW: Especially the last couple of years, have there been a lot more of you going to court?

TF: Yeah, it kind of depends on the county, so we spend a lot of time in court this year because of the redistricting issue. So I was in court a lot and then I knew my neighbor in Fulton, she was in court a lot with some of the 2020 issues being less litigious. It just depends. 

CW: My next question is, what does voting in or democracy mean to you? And then based on the definition, like, how does that impact your work in the realm of voting?

TF: I think that voting to me is a basic right as an American, and I think what's really special about voting in America is that it's not required. Some countries require you to vote, but in America, it's a choice. And I like to tell people that my hardest day was also one of my worst memories in this job, and is also the same day as one of my best memories. So when I was in Arlington prior to coming to Georgia I was in Arlington, were just outside of Washington, DC, and it was a very different. Everything about Virginia voting is different than Georgia. But we were implementing rank choice voting for the first time, and we were the only county to do that in Virginia and it cost a lot of confusion. voters were upset because they felt like it was too confusing and that we were trying to do something. And so there was a voter at our office. We were doing early voting and he demanded to speak to the manager who was me as my boss was gone and um he was upset and he was yelling at me that something was wrong with his ballot. And then I explained it and then he realized he was wrong and I made him more angry. And so he ended up crumpling up his ballot and he had the ballots and he threw it at me and walked out. And so I went to my office and cried. Once I got myself together, I went back out and maybe an hour or two later, um there were two young kids, young kids. They were obviously 18, two young people coming out of the voting room. and it was a guy and a gal and the girl was crying. And I was like, what did my poll worker say that upset this girl. like, what did they do? 

TF: And so they saw me, obviously staring at them and the guy was like this is my friend. She just became a citizen and she and she just voted for the first time. And so I think that I like to share that story because I always say, I serve both those voters in the same way, right? Whether they trust me and they are so honored to be able to vote and that it makes them cry or they don't trust me at all and they throw their ballot in my face. I serve them the same way. 

CW: Oh my gosh I love that I love that because it really is true. Like people think that the act of voting is inherently political, but like it really isn't. Like you're just contributing to democracy. Being able to, like, use your voice, I think is just like something that we all are entitled to do, which I think is awesome. So I love that story. That was so sweet. 

CW: So why do people who work in election offices recommend voting early, even though there's a day dedicated to voting? 

TF: We always say we try to not advocate for one avenue over another because we recognize that everyone's lives are different. But one thing that's great about early voting is that on a day like today, we don't really have long lines, but let's say tomorrow I'm sure we'll be really busy for Saturday. If you wait until Election Day and the line is three hours long, you have only three hours to vote. If you're doing early voting, it doesn't work out, you can have a backup plan, whereas Election day's no time for a backup plan. 

CW: So my last question for you is, if you could talk to any young person under 18 about voting, what would you say to them? 

TF: I think one thing that I see doing all the elections for Cobb County, right, and for the municipalities is that we always have such high turnout for even your elections, right? For federal elections, for the governor, because that's what people are most familiar with. But the people who have the most effect on you is the local level, right? So you can vote on the school board for the school in which you attend or which you attended. I’m sure you have a lot of opinions about the school and what could be better and what could be worse and to be able to vote for that person that represents you is really special. Your mayor, your city council, your county board that are levying taxes begins to their citizens. You have a voice in that.

TF: I think there is a lot more direct impact at the local level. So I try to encourage young people, you know, it's not always sexy to go to a city election. But it still really, really affects us in a deeper way. Something else I would stress is doing your own research and you know, really looking into resources that are more nonpartisan. You're trying to present information, a great resource that I suggest is BallotReady.org. They ask [candidates] the same questions and it gives them the answers. It also does a good job of explaining any questions that are on the ballot. And so I think just being prepared, it's okay to have a different opinion from your parents. There's nothing wrong with that. That'll change or it won't as you grow older. I, that's the part of growing up, but just doing your own research and making a decision for yourself, I think is really important. 

CW: Those are all the questions that I had. Thank you again for taking the time out to talk to me.