Tally turmoil
Election plagued by problems
ATLANTA — Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours on Tuesday to cast ballots across Georgia, demonstrating a fierce desire to participate in the democratic process while raising questions about the emerging battleground state’s ability to manage elections in November when the White House is at stake.
“It’s really disheartening to see a line like this in an
area with predominantly black residents,” said Benaiah Shaw, a 25-year-old African American, as he cast a ballot in Atlanta.
A confluence of events disrupted primary elections for president, U.S. Senate and dozens of other contests. There were problems with Georgia’s new voting machines, which combine touchscreens with scanned paper ballots. The polls were staffed by fewer workers because of coronavirus concerns. A reduced workforce contributed to officials consolidating polling places, which disproportionately affected neighborhoods with high concentrations of people of color. Long lines were also reported in whiter suburban areas.
Some voters said they requested mail-in ballots that never arrived, forcing them to go to polling places and adding to the lines. Polling places in at least nine counties remained open later than expected because of voting problems.
Turnout, meanwhile, may be higher than expected as voters said they were determined to exercise their constitutional right after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing demonstrations that swept cities including Atlanta.
“Too many people died for me to have this opportunity,” said Stephanie Bush, a 49-year-old black independent voter in Atlanta. “So for me not to stick it out would be a dishonor to them.”
Most of Northwest Georgia apparently avoided most of the problems Tuesday that Fulton, DeKalb and other counties in the Atlanta area suffered.
Larry Sampson, the elections officer in Murray County, said his office had a slight issue with the way the new voting machines were powering on. Sampson said it had something to do with the way they plugged into the wall. A simple unplug and reboot fixed the problem, he said.
Tonya Moore with the Catoosa County elections office said they had no issues at all with the voting machines and lines had been steady all day.
Catoosa County Elections Board Chairman Rickey Kittle said their precincts also had electrical issues. The Catoosa County office had to cancel “hundreds” of mail-in ballots because people who had requested them decided to vote in person instead, Kittle said.
Tammie Vaughan with the elections office in Dade County said it was all smooth sailing Tuesday, and Whitfield County election officials were counting absentee ballots at 10 p.m.
Results were trickling in late from Walker County.
Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won the state’s Democratic presidential primary. He was facing no real opposition but hoped to post a strong showing among Georgia’s diverse electorate to show his strength heading into the general election.
But the developments were troubling heading into the fall presidential campaign, which will attract even more voters. Biden and President Donald Trump are expected to fiercely compete in the rapidly changing state. That leaves officials, who have already been criticized for attempting to suppress the vote, with less than five months to turn things around.
Republican leaders blamed the meltdowns on officials in Fulton and DeKalb counties, which are Democratic strongholds with significant black populations.
“When these things arise, and it’s really specifically in one or two counties … it leads us back to the failure of the management of the county election directors in those counties,” Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Associated Press. “It has nothing to do with what we’re doing in the rest of Georgia.”
Staff writer Patrick Filbin contributed to this story.