The fight against politicizing elections has been an ongoing effort since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and attacked officials with his words as well as with a mob of his supporters. While his attempted coup on January 6, 2021 failed, his third bid for the presidency in 2024 unfortunately succeeded.
However, between these two events, his most zealous acolytes have waged war against elections, the foundation of our democracy, at the state and local level. In Cobb County he has GOP Chair Salleigh Grubbs, a diehard election denier who attended Trump’s Jan. 6 rally at The Ellipse in Washington DC, who has spearheaded the former president’s attempt to disrupt elections.
Her radicalism and conspiracies have been so clear-cut, CNN did a special segment on her influence at the State Elections Board. The segment is worth a watch and really shows the type of person we are dealing with.
Recently, she set her sights on the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration (we’ll refer to it as BOER to avoid confusion with the board of education), which she made clear at December’s meeting.
The reason for her fury? She demanded a meeting with Cobb Elections Director Tate Fall after the November 2024 election. However, Fall felt that giving one political party special treatment was not in the best interest of the county. A position we wholeheartedly agree with.
When Grubbs took the podium during the public comment portion of the December meeting, she let her conspiracy theories fly.
“(She) came out swinging,” the Marietta Daily Journal said of Grubbs performance (surely there’s no implicit bias there, right?). In her tirade, the Cobb GOP chair bemoaned the lack of special treatment and accused the BOER of holding illegal meetings.
In order to be unbiased in how the board speaks with political parties, the BOER is considering a new policy at their meeting on Monday that requires an invitation to be extended to the leadership of both parties and/or their appointed representatives.
For example, if the Chair of the Cobb County Democratic Committee has questions for the elections director and wants to schedule a meeting, an invitation would also be extended to GOP leadership, and vice-versa. If party leadership is unavailable, the BOER member that represents each party can attend.
This nonpartisan approach will provide transparency and accountability to how the BOER handles political parties inquiring about elections. Unsurprisingly, Grubbs and the GOP are fully opposed to it.
She described the policy as “Asinine,” which was apparently the Cobb GOP’s word of the month (those who attended December’s Cobb Board of Education meeting heard it several times from Superintendent Chris Ragsdale when he attacked his critics).
The BOER will vote on the new policy on Monday, Jan. 13 at 3 p.m. and will allow 24 citizens- 12 in-person and 12 virtual- to speak during public comment. A sign up form to speak in-person will be available in the meeting room, on the day of the meeting.
The sign up form to speak virtually can be found here and closes at noon one Monday. A time slot of 3 - 5 minutes is allowed for public comment.
The meeting will take place at 100 Cherokee St. Marietta, GA. You can also watch the meeting online on the Cobb County Government YouTube Page.
View the proposed policy, as well as the meeting agenda here.