Light Turnout, Reforms Keep Metro Atlanta Voting Lines Short On Runoff Day
Poll workers speak with a voter at the C.T. Martin Recreation Center in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Emil Moffatt / WABE
Georgia held its first election Tuesday since the June 9 primary when many voters stood in line for hours to cast their ballot.
Turnout for the primary runoff election was light around metro Atlanta. At many of the polling places in Fulton and DeKalb counties that saw big crowds in June, the lines were nonexistent.
While the runoff only featured a handful of races, there’s also been an emphasis on hiring and training more poll workers, reopening polling sites that had been closed and placing an emphasis on early or mail-in voting.
“What we’re seeing, obviously, the turnout is not today what it was on June 9 or what it will be in November, but this is a great, great trial run for us,” said Robb Pitts, chairman of the Fulton County Commission.
Pitts had set a goal of having 80 percent of votes cast before election day – either by early voting or by mail. As of Tuesday evening, that percentage for the August runoff stood at 77 percent, with 23 percent voting Tuesday in person.
While Pitts was pleased with the reforms Fulton County has made since June, he says he’s still not a fan of the state’s new $100 million voting system.
“I don’t like the new equipment, but the more you use it, I think, the easier it’s going to become for the voters – they’re getting more accustomed to it,” said Pitts.
The new voting system involves a check-in poll pad, a touchscreen ballot marking device, a printer and a paper printout of the voter’s selections, which then goes through an optical scanner. The scanner reads a QR code to officially record the vote.
“When you compare what we’re using now with what we’re used to using, it’s too many moving parts. Too much stuff that can go wrong,” said Pitts.
Media reports cited “software issues” with the new equipment causing delays in Floyd and Macon-Bibb counties on Tuesday, leading to extended hours for the polls there.
In Atlanta, a polling site in Buckhead did have some technical issues early in the day, but Pitts said technicians were able to resolve the problem.
Speaking at lunchtime at the C.T. Martin Recreation Center polling site, Mary Carole Cooney, the chair of Fulton County’s Board of Elections, says she was pleased with the way things went on runoff Election Day.
But she did acknowledge some voters – even her own son – saw delays in receiving their absentee ballots by mail. She said her son’s ballot was mailed July 28 and only reached him Monday.
“This seems indicative of the problems with the post office that we’ve been hearing about in a variety of ways,” said Cooney. “We’re going to look at that very closely to make sure that is not an issue for the November election.”
One thing that is expected to help in the processing of absentee ballot requests is a new online portal being set up by the state. It will allow users to apply for an absentee ballot without downloading, printing, scanning and emailing back the application.
Fulton County had been working to develop its own online portal in case the state’s version wasn’t ready in time. But Cooney says they may reevaluate having to roll out their own site.
“Yesterday, somewhat to my surprise, the state elections board announced that its portal is going to be ready in a week,” said Cooney. “This is news to me. So that may change how we handle it.”
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