Election troubles fuel voter suppression worries at polls
ATLANTA — After hearing about possible voter intimidation, challenges to absentee ballots and the potential for an Election Day meltdown, Shannon Hooker was among the thousands of Georgia voters who showed up on the first day of early voting.
His concerns about voting problems were quickly confirmed.
He faced technology breakdowns in the state’s voting system and a wait that lasted hours. He said he nearly left the excruciating line at his polling location at the Southwest Arts Center near Atlanta, and he witnessed at least 20 other people who left before casting a ballot. He wonders how many of them may never return.
“Hopefully they’ll come back or go to a different voting area,” Hooker said. “I feel everyone’s voice should be heard.”
As Georgians enter the final week of early voting in the runup to the Nov. 3 election, the state is once again at the center of voting rights battles.
Voter suppression fears have reemerged this year in the form of extreme lines and complications with absentee ballots, both of which could prevent votes from being counted.
They come at a moment when the stakes have never been higher.
Presidential polls show the contest is close in Georgia, and the nation’s eyes are watching to see whether a legacy of election failures resurfaces.
While more voters than ever are participating in Georgia’s election, many must overcome hurdles to ensure their ballots are counted.
At the start of early voting last week, check-in problems with the state’s voter system left voters stranded for hours and served as a reminder of the failures during the June primary. Wait times of five hours were common in metro Atlanta, with some voters waiting over 11 hours. The longest delays were found in Cobb and Gwinnett counties.
The lines cleared up for the most part after several days, but they’re likely to reoccur when turnout surges in the final days of the three-week early voting period and on Nov. 3.
Polling place closures and relocations across the state, combined with 1 million new voters since the last presidential election, contribute to overcrowded voting locations and concerns that a fragile system could be overloaded.
Remote voting during the coronavirus pandemic also comes with challenges. Some voters haven’t received their absentee ballots after waiting for weeks, and tens of thousands of ballots could be rejected if they’re received too late, after Georgia’s deadline of 7 p. m. on Nov. 3.
“All of this is predictable. It’s unacceptable that people should have to wait in long lines and request absentee ballots that don’t come,” said Hannah Fried, national campaign director for All Voting Is Local, an organization that pushes to remove voting barriers. “If the outcome is that eligible people aren’t voting, we have a real problem in this country.”
The longest waits during early voting have been caused in large part by the state’s slow voter checkin database, a problem that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said was resolved after a few days. But local election officials last week reported the system was still slow at times. And voting rights organizations fear the issue could rise again as turnout continues to increase, straining election systems anew.
Raffensperger, a Republican who serves as the state’s top election official, sees the lines at some locations as evidence of high turnout and an active electorate. He said that counters the narrative that voters are struggling to have their votes counted.
He and other Republicans dismiss charges of suppression, saying it’s a false narrative at a time when Georgians have more access and more people are voting than ever.