Cobb voters defy mid-morning rain

As of 8:50 a.m., 121 people had voted at the Smyrna Community Center.

Thomas Starr went to the Smyrna Community Center to vote Tuesday in an area of town he, as a black man, would have been barred from decades ago.

“Only to work and keep the place up, that’s all I was allowed to do,” said the Smyrna native as it started to drizzle.

But on Tuesday, he voted for Stacey Abrams, who’d be the nation’s first black female governor.

“This is a chance of a lifetime,” said the 80-year-old man.

READCobb voters are out at the polls on an expected rainy Election Day

As of 8:50 a.m., 121 people had voted at the community center here in Smyrna, said poll manager Robert A. Robinson.

Robinson said he spent 20 years in the U.S. Army and wanted to get more involved in elections “to see where we’re getting our orders from.”

Terri Cowart said she voted for a simple reason.

“We need change at every level,” said the lifelong Democrat.

She cast her ballot for Stacey Evans. “I just feel her passion more, her record more ... I don’t feel like she’s part of the system.”

For the latest today and always, follow along here in addition to FacebookTwitter and Instagram.