Long lines snarl voting in Georgia primaries amid pandemic

June 9, 2020

Collins Parker,

ATLANTA (AP) — Long lines formed at some polling places as Democratic candidates vying to take on Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue of Georgia in November faced off in a primary election Tuesday.

Georgia’s chief election officer had warned results may be slow to come in as poll closures and virus restrictions complicate in-person voting and counties work to process a huge increase in ballots received by mail.

Among the key races Tuesday was a contested Democratic primary for the nomination to challenge Perdue.

Democrats included former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff, former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and former lieutenant governor candidate Sarah Riggs Amico.

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DPG Statement on Election Day Voting Issues So Far

ATLANTA — Today, the Democratic Party of Georgia released the following statement on the widespread issues facing voters across Georgia on Election Day from spokeswoman Maggie Chambers:

“So far this Election Day we have received countless reports of widespread voting issues in every corner of the state, and this is not limited to Fulton County or the metro area alone. The Secretary of State’s job is to provide adequate support and training for counties as he implemented Georgia’s new voting system, and he has failed. Across the state, Georgia voters are waiting for hours to cast their ballots because Georgia’s system is failing them. We demand statewide action by the Secretary of State — the chief elections official in Georgia— to fix this problem immediately before we see these issues for every election this cycle.”

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ATLANTA –The following is a statement from Statewide Voting Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling on voting and elections in Georgia:

“So far we have no reports of any actual equipment issues. We do have reports of equipment being delivered to the wrong locations and delivered late. We have reports of poll workers not understanding setup or how to operate voting equipment. While these are unfortunate, they are not issues of the equipment but a function of counties engaging in poor planning, limited training, and falures of leadership. Well over 2,000 precincts are functioning normally throughout the state of Georgia.”

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(Atlanta)-Statement from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (who was on the ballot, himself) on Investigation into Fulton and Dekalb County Elections Processes:

“The voting situation today in certain precincts in Fulton and Dekalb counties is unacceptable. My office has opened an investigation to determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November’s election. Obviously, the first time a new voting system is used there is going to be a learning curve, and voting in a pandemic only increased these difficulties. But every other county faced these same issues and were significantly better prepared to respond so that voters had every opportunity to vote.”

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from CBS 46 in Atlanta

Fulton County Commissioner Liz Hausmann acknowledged Tuesday that the county had bungled the election.
“The majority of folks I heard had applied for an absentee ballot and it was never processed,” she said. “I don’t really have an answer for why that happened, it’s very disappointing.”
Hausmann also apologized to those who hoped to vote by absentee and cannot afford to wait in long lines.
“You can’t blame anyone else on our lack of processing these applications,” she said. “That’s on us.”