Lines, heat plague Georgia’s election
Vote machines, lower staffing also problems
ATLANTA — Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours on Tuesday to cast ballots in Georgia.
“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. Turnout, meanwhile, may be higher than expected.
Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won the state’s Democratic presidential primary.
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 said. “It has nothing to do with what we’re doing in the rest of Georgia.”
Republican House Speaker David Ralston directed leaders of the House Governmental Affairs Committee to investigate the “unacceptable deficiencies” across the state, particularly in Fulton County.
Volunteers handed out bags of popcorn, chips and candy. People in line smoked cigarettes and cursed the wait. Some said they’d tried to vote earlier in the day but left because the line wrapped around the block.
The Trump campaign seized on the problems to amplify the president’s broader opposition to expanded mail voting this fall.
“The chaos in Georgia is a direct result of the reduction in the number of in-person polling places and over reliance on mail-in voting,” said Trump campaign senior counsel Justin Clark. “We have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all of our citizens to vote in person and to have their votes counted.”
The Biden campaign called the voting problems in Georgia “completely unacceptable” and a threat to free and fair elections.
Americans also voted in primaries in West Virginia, South Carolina and Nevada, where hourslong lines were reported as well.