Early vote lines are moving quicker
♦ The Elections Board will meet today at noon at the Forum River Center.
People in line to vote early Wednesday said the wait time was still around an hour, but the process moved a lot more smoothly than the first two days.
Jack Harris and Lori Harris both said they felt comfortable with how long it took to cast their ballots and the poll workers are doing a good job. Poll watchers confirmed the lines were moving more smoothly at the two local sites, the Floyd County Administration Building and Garden Lakes Baptist Church.
According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, 241,706 people statewide had cast their ballots in person as of the close of polls Tuesday.
Floyd County Chief Elections Clerk Robert Brady said he had expected a large turnout as far back as June, but was still surprised to see so many people coming to the polls.
“We’ve been telling people to expect long waits and to expect long lines, and to use the absentee ballot process,” Brady said Wednesday. “Now they’re not doing that, and these long lines are coming into existence that haven’t been seen in Floyd County before.”
Brady estimated that around 2,000 people had voted in person in Floyd County so far this week. Additionally, as of noon, the elections office had logged in 2,100 completed absentee ballots out of the 15,089 they’ve mailed out.
“It’s still stacked up, there’s a lot of folks, but I’m glad to see it,” Brady said. “It’s just not as disastrous as it has been.”
While the first two days saw some system glitches statewide, it seemed Wednesday that the problem had been fixed. Locally, they’ve added additional computers at the voting sites to check people in.
Poll workers have also had to deal with the challenge of voters bringing in their absentee ballots and wanting to vote in person instead. Brady has now set up the precincts so that those people are taken out of line and brought to a poll worker assigned to officially cancel their absentee ballot so they can be issued a voting card.
As far as security measures go, Floyd County Emergency Management Agency Director Tim Herrington said they have provided poll workers with radios for the Nov. 3 election.
Those radios are currently being tested at polling locations.
“We’re getting (poll workers) used to the radios,” Herrington said. “They’re for calling in the case of an emergency or even if there’s a problem with IT or whatever.”
He also notified the county that EMA has a disinfecting fogger that could be used to disinfect polling stations at regular intervals.
“It’s here and if they want to use that for disinfecting areas, that’s OK with us,” Herrington said.
Early voting will continue at the Floyd County Administration Building and Garden Lakes Baptist Church will continue from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. through Friday.
This weekend both polling locations will be open from 9 a. m. to 4 p. m. on Saturday. On Sunday, the county building will be open the same time, but Garden Lakes will only be open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
On Thursday at noon, the Floyd County Board of Elections will meet in the Berry Shorter Room of the River Forum Center to discuss finances, a new grant and other operational duties for Election Day.