Lines of 2 or 3 hours about average for Tuesday voters

Early voting wait times at polls across metro Atlanta improved slightly on Tuesday — hovering at about two or three hours in some locations — compared to four to eight hours at problem spots on Monday.

Where to advance vote: Clayton | Cobb | DeKalb | Fulton | Gwinnett

Gwinnett County elections officials added equipment and staff to polling places, and lines were running about two or three hours.

“That’s normal for the volume of voters we are having,” Gwinnett elections director Lynn Ledford said. At the Singleton Road Activity Building in Norcross, some voters had waited six hours on Monday. Ledford said her staff will make more adjustments, if necessary, to deal with heavy volume.

In Fulton County, waits were also generally around three hours, compared to an extreme of eight hours at one polling place in Alpharetta on Monday.

“So far, so good,” said Mark Henderson, Fulton County’s voter education and outreach coordinator.

Fulton added six more poll workers to each location Tuesday for a total of 15 per poll. The county also added three check-in machines at each poll, for a total of five at each location.

Other locations sailed along fairly smoothly on Tuesday.

Voters at the Boots Ward Recreation Center at Lost Mountain Park in Powder Springs began lining up before 6 a.m., and by 8:30 the line was about 100 people and growing. One resident who voted said the wait was about 90 minutes.

About 200 people were in line when voting started at the precinct on West Ponce de Leon Avenue in Decatur Tuesday. Peter McDade waited 45 minutes, arriving at 6:45 a.m. and walking out at 7:30 a.m.

“I thought it would be about an hour-and-a-half,” he said.

Henderson, the Fulton official, cited two reasons for problems on Monday, the first day of expanded advance voting.

The state’s computer system went down six times, for about 30 minutes at a time, he said. That slowed check-in and ID verification.

Also, Fulton opened three polls late because elections workers did not have keys to open the machines that created voter access cards. That caused an hour delay in the opening of the Northeast Spruill Oaks Regional Library poll in Alpharetta, Henderson said. The Hembree Park poll in Roswell opened 15 minutes late on Monday and the Welcome All Park poll in Atlanta opened 30 minutes late.

If someone arrived at the Spruill Oaks poll at 7 a.m. to wait, and the poll didn’t open until 9:30 a.m. and then computer problems added more hours of delays, that is why some people waited as long as eight hours, Henderson explained.

“Opening late, and the computer going down really messed up our day at Spruill Oaks,” he said.

On Tuesday, all polls opened on time, he said.

Secretary of State Karen Handel said Monday that her office was aware of some “sluggishness” in the system and that technicians from the Georgia Technology Authority immediately went to work on it.

At no time did the system actually break down nor did the computer system go out, Handel said.

Expanded early voting, with several locations open this week in all counties, is part of a statewide strategy to ease the crunch on Election Day.

More limited early voting has been under way for weeks. More than a million voters statewide have cast ballots already. Matt Carrothers, spokesman for Handel’s office, said he expects 300,000 to 400,000 more voters to cast their ballots in the coming week.

Waits in Clayton County on Tuesday were about two hours, but on Monday some voters waited to vote until after midnight at the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale.

As in Fulton, Clayton elections director Annie Bright cited state computer glitches for long lines.

“The process was very, very slow and that threw my people behind. Some computers were down altogether,” Bright said.

Poll workers turned to printed voter rolls to look up residents, which took much longer than the computer system, Bright said.

Bright said she was disappointed that the state did not take responsibility for delays.

“Once the system picked up speed, we were fine,” Bright said. “This was a statewide problem. To say it was down for a few minutes is just not true,” she said.

“I’m going to take responsibility that some of our people got overwhelmed after the system went down, but this was a problem with the state computer system — not our people,” Bright said.

Clayton County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell also blamed a shortage of voting machines.

“It’s not about incompetence, it’s about equipment,” Bell said.

Bell said his county asked for more voting machines, but the request was not answered.

He said Handel should “exercise your powers to secure your machines for Georgia voters,” adding: “Ms. Handel, do what you are supposed to do and we in the county will take care of the rest.”

Clayton has 35 voting machines in the precincts and another 12 at elections headquarters in Jonesboro.

Bright said she is trying to set aside several machines for senior citizens, who take longer to vote. But that’s difficult when each precinct only has seven machines.

In DeKalb, there were no computer issues at the Memorial Drive elections office in DeKalb County on Tuesday, said Mary Frances Weeks, administrative assistant in the office.

Still, by 8:15 a.m. the wait time in line was already about 90 minutes. Weeks said the county’s five other locations also had waits.

“Everybody has lines but I think they’re all handling it pretty well,” Weeks said.

Lines were much shorter early Tuesday in Forsyth County, with about 25 people in line at each polling spot, officials said. Voters were getting in and out in five minutes or so.

Gary Smith, Forsyth’s elections chief, said the county avoided serious slowdowns during Monday’s computer snarls because it had developed backup processes in case the state system “falters, fails or sputters.”

State elections board member Randy Evans said he expects the heavy turnout to exacerbate any new problems that arise.

“I’m really worried about Election Day,” he said. “There will be unexpected things that happen.”

At the busiest precincts, any computer glitch could translate into far longer wait times, he said.

Here is a list of the advanced polling locations open:

CLAYTON COUNTY

Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Elections and Registration Office: 121 S. McDonough St., Jonesboro

• Carl Rhodenizer Recreation Center: 3499 Rex Road, Rex

• Lee Headquarters Library: 865 Battle Creek Road, Jonesboro

• Lovejoy Branch Library: 1721 McDonough Road, Hampton

• Morrow Municipal Complex (Community Room): 1500 Morrow Road, Morrow

• Frank Bailey Senior Center: 6213 Riverdale Road, Riverdale

COBB COUNTY

Main office is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Satellite offices are open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Cobb Elections Main Office: West Park Government Center, 736 Whitlock Ave., Marietta

• East Cobb Government Service Center: 4400 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta

• South Cobb Government Service Center: 4700 Austell Road, Austell

• Boots Ward Recreation Center: Lost Mountain Park, 4845 Dallas Highway, Powder Springs

• North Cobb Senior Center (at Kennworth Park): 4100 Highway 293 (Old 41), Acworth

• The Gallery at Galleria Specialty Mall: Two Galleria Parkway S.E., Atlanta

DEKALB COUNTY

Main office is open Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Memorial Drive Complex (across street from the jail). 4380 Memorial Drive, Suite 300, Decatur

• 330 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Room A, (Directly across the street from the Wachovia Bank, closer to the Post Office), Decatur

• Lithonia Middle School: 2451 Randall Ave., Lithonia

• DeKalb County Fire Headquarters: 1950 W. Exchange Place, Training Conference Room, Tucker

• Liane Levetan Park at Brook Run: 4770 N. Peachtree Road, Dunwoody

• South DeKalb Senior Center: 1931 Candler Road, Decatur

FULTON COUNTY

Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Fulton County Government Center: 141 Pryor St., Suite 4064, Atlanta

• North Fulton Service Center: 7741 Roswell Road, Room 209, Atlanta

• South Fulton Service Center: 5600 Stonewall Tell Road, Room 105, Atlanta

• Adamsville Rec Center: 3201 M.L. King Jr. Drive S.W., Atlanta

• Hembree Park: 850 Hembree Road, Roswell

• Northeast/Spruill Oaks Library: 9560 Spruill Road, Johns Creek

• Welcome All Park: 4255 Will Lee Road, Atlanta

GWINNETT COUNTY

Monday-Friday the main office is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Satellite offices are open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Gwinnett County Voter Registration and Elections office: 455 Grayson Highway, Suite 200, Lawrenceville

• Centerville Community Center: 3025 Bethany Church Road, Snellville

• Dacula Activity Building: 2735 Old Auburn Road, Dacula

• George Pierce Community Center: 55 Buford Highway, Suwanee

• Singleton Road Activity Building: 5220 Singleton Road, Norcross

Staff writers Donna Lewis, Nancy Badertscher, Mary MacDonald, Aaron Gould Sheinin, David Ibata, Kathy Jefcoats, Kent Miles, Michael Pearson, Kristina Torres and Mike Lupo contributed to this article.