ELECTION 2020

[Rootilda]

Georgia voters immediately encountered hours-long lines and equipment malfunctions as they showed up to vote in person in the state’s primary races on Tuesday. Today is the latest high-stakes test of whether a state can hold an election during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tuesday also marked the first time Georgia was using new voting equipment, and voters reported malfunctions on Tuesday morning. The Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, tweeted that at some precincts no machines were working.

Voters snaked around the parking lot of the Lions Club community center in Cobb county, where many said around noon that they had been waiting in line for two to three hours. At least half of the voters appeared to be wearing masks, and some voters carried umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun.

Chloe Mexile Benard, 33, said she had been waiting since 7.30am to vote. She reached the front of the line around noon, cheering as she was finally ushered in by a volunteer. She came to vote for the presidential primary, but also to choose the county commissioner and county sheriff, she said.

Asked why she didn’t vote with a mail-in ballot, Benard, whose T-shirt said “Dreams don’t expire,” said she doesn’t trust them. “I requested it. I received it, but I don’t trust anybody,” she said. “I don’t trust them to count it.”

Benard said there were just two voting machines at the station when she arrived. Then, “two more appeared, magically,” she said. Geraldine Aldridge, a polling manager at the site, said seven machines including one for handicapped voters, were working at noon.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020...g-machines