Cobb residents wait 3 hours for early voting

Democracy was built to be a slow, deliberative process. But that sentiment probably doesn’t mean much to Cobb County residents getting into a three-hour line to vote.

Janine Eveler, head of elections in Cobb, said that was the estimated wait time Wednesday morning to cast a ballot for midterm election.

Many were there to vote for gubernatorial candidates Democrat Stacey Abrams or Republican Brian Kemp.

The county government center on Whitlock Avenue is Cobb’s sole early voting location until Saturday. And it showed as cars jostled and honked for a stitch of curb to park along.

Eveler said people were lined up at 7 a.m., but the precinct opens at 8 a.m.

She mused that at least they only waited an hour.

Ann Neely got there at 8:15 a.m., only to wait an hour and 45 minutes. The 55-yearold said she put her car in the Dollar Tree parking lot across the busy street. She tried to vote the day before but the estimate was 2½ hours.

After seeing pictures of the long line tweeted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a group called Pizza to the Polls purchased 16 jumbo pies for the precinct from a Marietta pizza joint. The Cobb delivery makes 2,664 pizzas delivered by the group.

Greg Weigandt gave it 30 minutes in line Wednesday morning before giving up and heading inside to get an absentee ballot, a five-minute process. He’d also come the day before to scope the line.

He said he prefers to vote in person because “you feel like you’re distant” from the process voting at home.

Weigandt said he knows more polling places will open soon, but he’ll be out of town.

He has lived in Cobb half of his 70 years and planned to vote for Kemp.

Weigandt said he was against what he described as the”socialist agenda” of Abrams, and felt Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was mistreated during his contentious confirmation. The process brought multi- ple sexual assault allegations against the judge, which he denied. Kemp has supported Kavanaugh, and Abrams has opposed him.

“He (Kavanaugh) was found guilty in certain eyes before due process,” said Stacey Brown, who voted for Kemp on Wednesday.

Brown, who waited an hour and 40 minutes to vote, said the way Kavana- ugh’s confirmation played out was a factor in her support of Kemp.

“As a mom of a son, I’d be upset if he was treated that way,” she said.

Kathleen Liebman, 70, tried to vote Tuesday and came back Wednesday to cast her ballot for Abrams.

Liebman said she didn’t like Kemp pointing a gun at a young man in one of his television spots.

“I just think Kemp is scary,” she said.

No matter how people voted, Eveler expects more of it.