Some Clayton County voters face shorter wait: 5 hours

Embarrassed by a 14 percent voting turnout during the July primary, some Clayton County residents waited more than five hours Tuesday to vote.

By 5 p.m., the line snaked through the halls of the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale, around the building and into the parking lot.

Gregory Sharpe, 34, of Riverdale, pulled on a pair of thermal coveralls and a hooded sweatshirt against the October chill, and settled in for the night on a lawn chair.

“My wife was here until 1 a.m. this morning and she wasn’t prepared,” Sharpe said as he waited outside the senior center. “I wanted to be prepared.”

With a five-hour wait, the Riverdale senior center had the longest lines of Clayton’s six advance voting precincts on Tuesday. On Monday, the wait there was more than seven hours in the afternoon.

Annie Bright, the county’s elections director, attributed Monday’s lines to the handling of two busloads of senior citizens and glitches in the statewide computer program.

More seniors and handicapped voters, who automatically go to the front of the line, filled the Frank Bailey center Tuesday.

The wait at the other five precincts in Clayton ranged from an hour to four hours.

Betty Peterson, 58, of Jonesboro, said she didn’t mind standing outside the Lovejoy library because she made friends while waiting in line. After two hours, Peterson — who was wearing two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks and four shirts — knew the names of a group of women beside her in line, along with their professions and children’s names.

Nestshia Harden, who was behind Peterson, said she wanted to show that Clayton County voters are active voting participants. In the primary, 14 percent of Clayton’s 136,000 registered voters turned out. Just 6 percent turned out for a school board special election last month.

“I just want to exercise my right,” Harden said. “We need change.”

Evelyn Roberts, the Lovejoy poll manager, said she’s been working county elections since 1968 and has never seen a turnout as large as she did on Tuesday.

“Not only are these the biggest crowds ever, people aren’t complaining,” Roberts said.

The majority of voters were like 19-year-old Nicole Salary. She wanted to take part in making history by voting for a black man for president, said Salary, a Georgia Perimeter College student.

“I’m so excited that I don’t mind the cold,” said Salary, who was voting for the first time. “I would wait all night because I’m making history.”

Patrick McCullough, a lifelong Jonesboro resident, said he always pays careful attention to the local races.

“I was happy to see Sheriff ‘Walking Small’ (Victor Hill) lose in the primary,” said McCullough, a construction supervisor. “People forget that local elections are the ones that affect you the most. Look at Victor Hill. He cost this county millions of dollars in lawsuits and embarrassed us. But voters wanted him gone and he is.”

Hill lost to Democrat Kem Kimbrough in the primary. Kimbrough faces Republican Jack Rainwater for Clayton sheriff.