Politics & Government
8-Hour Wait Times On First Day Of Georgia Early Voting
Voters in one suburban Atlanta county had to wait eight hours to vote. Advance-voting sites throughout the metro were similarly overwhelmed.
LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — The lines had the look of a major concert, maybe a sporting event, or perhaps the midnight premiere of a new superhero movie. But that wasn’t the case.
Instead, it was the line outside Gwinnett County’s election headquarters, a repurposed big-box store, on the first day of early voting. By the time headquarters closed at 5 p.m. Monday, some Gwinnett residents had waited as long as eight hours to cast a ballot.
The Lawrenceville location was one of nine advance-voting sites spread throughout Gwinnett County, a suburban Atlanta county that was sued by Democrats for what they alleged to be voter suppression during the 2018 general election.
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At that time, Gwinnett election officials threw out more than 8,100 absentee ballots — an unusually large number — over what they judged to be discrepancies in signatures and incorrect information on ballot envelopes. The suit was settled earlier this year.
“If you have to wait eight hours, you have to wait eight hours,” said a Loganville woman waiting in line with her 11-year-old daughter in tow.
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Many of the voters in line brought folding chairs and umbrellas to shade themselves. Some fiddled with their smartphones. One woman was spotted filling out Sudoku puzzles.
A voter from Grayson who’d brought her own padded office chair to sit in said that she’d seen long lines in Gwinnett when Barack Obama was first elected president — but nothing like this.
Other Gwinnett early-voting sites experienced waits, according to the county’s website. But the headquarters’ line stood out, more than twice as long as the next longest lines in Buford and Dacula.
The shortest line — only an hour as of early Monday evening — was at Mountain Park Activity Building in Stone Mountain.
Counties throughout metro Atlanta experienced similar voting delays, including overwhelmed polling places and computer glitches, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Early voting will continue in most of Georgia until Oct. 30, the Friday before the Nov. 3 general election.
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