Heat, rain, long lines: Georgia election plagued by problems
ATLANTA — Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours on Tuesday to cast ballots in 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. Turnout, meanwhile, may be higher than expected as voters said they were determined to participate in the democratic process after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing demonstrations that swept cities including Atlanta.
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.
Polling places in at least nine Georgia counties — from the northwest corner of the state to the southeast coastline — were staying open later than expected because of the problems.
The developments were troubling heading into the fall presidential campaign, which will attract even more voters. President Donald Trump and Biden are expected to fiercely compete in this 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.
“When these things arise, and it’s really specifically in one or two counties, in Fulton and Dekalb counties that had these issues today, 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.”
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.
Fulton County election director Richard Barron said the pandemic and large increase in mail voting “created unique staffing and logistical challenges.” But he called Tuesday’s election a “learning experience” and said his team had “identified several areas for improvement” in November.
Democrats insisted the issues were more widespread. About 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Atlanta, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said he was “inundated” with phone calls from voters reporting “extensive delays.”
The Biden campaign called the voting problems in Georgia “completely unacceptable,” as well as a threat to American values of free and fair elections.
“We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian — and every American — is able to safely exercise their right to vote,” said Rachana Desai Martin, the campaign’s national director for voter protection and senior counsel.
Americans were also voting in primaries in West Virginia, Nevada and South Carolina. But the tumult in Georgia garnered much of the attention, reinforcing concerns about managing elections amid the coronavirus.
Voters were also forced to wait hours to cast ballots in recent primary contests across Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
While there were no reports of machine malfunctions in other states on Tuesday, the number of voting places was dramatically reduced in virtually every state that has held in-person voting in recent weeks to accommodate a drop in poll workers.
Outside a recreation center being used as a polling site in Atlanta, some voters said they had been waiting for nearly four hours in a line that wrapped around the block. At another site off Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, several people walked up, looked at the line wrapped around the parking lot and then left, shaking their heads in frustration.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said voters in line at one of Atlanta’s largest precincts reported all the machines were down. She encouraged voters not to give up.
“If you are in line, PLEASE do not allow your vote to be suppressed,” the mayor tweeted.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said he wasn’t surprised that Georgia had voting problems given that the state’s elections chief is a Republican. He noted that GOP Gov. Brian Kemp faced allegations of suppressing votes when he oversaw the 2018 elections as secretary of state.
“Republicans want to ensure that it is as hard as possible for people to vote,” Perez said in an interview.
Kemp was largely silent about the voting problems on Tuesday, aside from retweeting a message from his wife urging people to vote.