FULTON COUNTY ELECTIONS String of poor work must end

tion information is verified. And they may have denied those ballots to others. An unknown number of precincts ran out of the provisional ballots and some voters may have given up without voting at all.

Fulton officials acknowledged that as many as 11,000 voters cast paper ballots, many of them apparently unnecessarily.

The state is investigating, but the county is proud of its effort. Incredibly, Fulton elections Interim Director Sharon Mitchell had this to say: “At the end of the day, we feel that we had a successful election.”

At least Mitchell seems in touch with the county’s traditions. And what are they? A brief history:

● November 2008: Fulton failed to adequately process thousands of absentee ballots from the general election. Workers in a warehouse counted for 53 hours with crews twice going home in exhaustion and mishandling thousands of ballots in violation of state election rules.

● April 2009: Fulton was fined $120,000 — believed to be the highest ever levied by the State Election Board — mostly for dumping more than 100,000 voter records, some containing private information, in a dumpster at Atlanta Technical College in 2007.

● Fall 2009: In a report to the State Election Board, attorney Norman Underwood, a monitor hired by the state, described Fulton’s management of the last presidential election as a “back room debacle.” (That word again.)

● May 2011: Elections Director Barry Garner admitted to inappropriate conduct in a sexual harassment investigation, according to an internal county document, and resigned.

● July 2012: In the primary election the county was tripped up by statewide redistricting. It put hundreds of voters in the wrong state House and Senate districts.

● September 2012: Elections Director Sam Westmoreland resigned while he was in jail. He was locked up for failing to follow sentencing guidelines from two prescription drug-related DUI arrests. Later reporting by this newspaper revealed that the county Board of Registration and Elections used a flawed process to hire Westmoreland, who falsified some of his work history, and apparently hadn’t been entirely clear about his legal woes.

That history might lead you to believe that the county would have really been on its toes for election day. The budget is almost $9 million, so taxpayers have a right to depend on a good performance from their elections de- partment.

At least, with Georgia as a solidly red state, we didn’t find our way to network news with a chance to become the national brunt of jokes. But it’s good to know Fulton’s prepared for when that opportunity comes.

We should make sure Elections Board Chairman Roderick Edmond is our spokesman should such a situation arise. Here’s what he said: “There were errors, but it wasn’t significant errors. It wasn’t a debacle like it was four years ago.”

Brilliant. I guess we’re supposed to just get used to this.

But let’s remember: Atlanta is the most important city in the South, and Georgia is one of the nation’s most important and emerging states.

County officials are in charge of the balloting process, one of democracy’s most basic functions. They can’t treat it as if they run a college fraternity electing the rush chairman.

It’s time to put an end to the embarrassment that is Fulton County’s management of elections.