It came a little later than usual this year but Tuesday was the first of the biannual events where the entire state – and country – watches with dismay at the Fulton County Elections Office process. Normally, this is reserved for the amount of time it takes for returns to come in on election night. This year, thousands of people ended up waiting two to three hours to cast their ballots (your humble reporter waited three hours).
There were a host of issues that made this year particularly awful from the start: new voting machines (even with near perfect training and user expertise there were bound to be problems), polling places closed for a number of reasons – including construction or not available because of Covid-19, such as senior centers, and a shortage of volunteers, many of whom fall into that senior category.
County leaders have had enough.
“We are currently reviewing the problems that we encountered yesterday and finding ways in which to minimize the possibility of the same problems in the future. We want the voting process to be a pleasant experience for our citizens”, said Fulton County Commission Chairman Rob Pitts.
On Tuesday, “pleasant” wasn’t the word many would use. When it wasn’t nearing 90 degrees with high humidity, it was storming. Not ideal conditions for waiting in a line outside.
Pitts has announced the formation of a Special Election Task Force to review the problems associated with the election and to better prepare for the August 13 run-off and the November 3 general election.
Despite decently high turnout – for a primary anyway, Tuesday was still a fraction of the numbers expected in November. Many experts are predicting a record high turnout in November and problems like Tuesday could mean disaster.
The Task Force will be focused on five key areas:
- Facilities (Polling places)
- Equipment (Machines & supplies)
- Personnel (Poll workers & training)
- Logistics (Operations – layout & flow)
- Communication (Public awareness)
The ten member Task Force will review these processes and recommend changes.
“Once any changes have been submitted to me, I will pass them on to the Board of Registration & Elections (BRE) for their consideration,” said Chairman Pitts.
The Secretary of State’s Office will also be conducting an investigation into the voting problems.
“The voting situation today in certain precincts in Fulton and DeKalb counties is unacceptable,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “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.”
