Georgia’s new ballot-marking voting machines would not work. Poll workers were unfamiliar with their operation. Precincts lacked enough paper to print provisional ballots. They opened late. Social-distancing meant lines snaked down streets and around blocks. Some voters waited hours to vote or went home.
Tuesday’s primary election featuring Georgia’s new touch-screen voting machines was, Mark Niesse explains in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, chaos:
Problems have been building for weeks as precincts closed, poll workers quit and the primary was postponed because of the health danger posed by the coronavirus crisis. Some voters south of Atlanta waited eight hours to vote on the last day of early voting Friday.
But the election went worse than expected Tuesday, especially in metro Atlanta, when poll workers couldn’t get Georgia’s new $104 million voting system system running. The system uses touchscreens and printers to create paper ballots.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted reports that none of the machines were working in some of the largest Atlanta-area precincts.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) blamed Fulton and DeKalb county officials for poor planning. Gwinnett County had “underestimated the number and size of trucks needed” to transport the new voting equipment, said a spokeswoman for the secretary of state.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia sent absentee-ballot requests to every active registered voter, leading to record levels of voting by mail. Absentee voting split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
Latrisha Hernandez says she never received her absentee ballot. She was not alone.
Hernandez complained that when she tried to vote in person at Park Tavern precinct (Fulton County), “They didn’t have the password to the system, so we had to sit to the side until they finally had a password to get it reset.”
Elton Harden and his wife found no machines when they arrived at a polling place in Gwinnett County before 7 a.m. His wife, scheduled for a surgery later in the morning, did not get to vote. Harden, who is African American, said, “If we’re going through this now, just think what November is going to be like.”
Voting was extended in DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, and another 17 counties across the state.
Hanlon’s razor advises, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” But after a second voting disaster in Georgia, one wonders if Hanlon applies here.
Democrat Stacey Abrams lost her 2018 gubernatorial bid to then-secretary of state Brian Kemp, a Republican, by the thinnest of margins. Abrams deemed the election “rotten and rigged.”
“From Jasper to Fulton to Coffee & Chatham, long lines, inoperable machines & under-resourced communities are being hurt,” Abrams tweeted. Raffensperger “owns this disaster.”
NBC News adds:
Democrats have targeted Georgia — which has added 700,000 registered voters to the rolls since 2018 — as a possible swing state in November. Rachana Desai Martin, the national director of voter protection for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said that what happened Tuesday is “unacceptable” and noted that many voters reported asking for — and never receiving — absentee ballots.
“We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian — and every American — is able to safely exercise their right to vote,” said Martin, whose candidate NBC News projected to win the Democratic primary in the state shortly after the official poll closing time. Martin said the Biden campaign “will remain fully engaged in defending” the right to vote.
This fall’s election is going to be a fight. Opponents of democracy won’t be observing Marquess of Queensberry rules. Or wearing gloves. Democrats will need to put up more of a fight than they have in years. The other team will give no quarter.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.