Lines weren’t as bad as feared

It wasn’t so bad after all.

Worries about overwhelmingly long lines, technical glitches and insufficient voting machines proved all but unfounded Tuesday. For most Georgia voters, this historic Election Day turned out to be a breeze.

Many in metro Atlanta waited an hour or less to cast their ballots Tuesday. Those who voted early in the morning faced longer lines — about 1 1/2 to 2 hours — than those who voted later. Turnout was heavy and steady all day, with scattered reports of technical problems and poll workers who mistakenly withheld ballots.

By the time polls closed at 7 p.m., lines were negligible in most places.

“This has been a very efficient and smooth day,” said Matt Carrothers a spokesman for Secretary of State Karen Handel.

“I was expecting a line,” said Jennifer Baron of Smyrna after voting in a Vinings precinct late Tuesday. “There wasn’t one. It took me three minutes to vote. My husband came this morning. It took him 1 1/2 hours. I tried to get him to come with me, but you know they don’t listen.”

Still, some voters spent as much as three to four hours in line at some precincts, and voting rights groups received hundreds of complaints over the course of the day.

There were no indications of orchestrated efforts to suppress voting, however, nor of major problems with voting machines.

In Atlanta, the Morehouse College precinct was especially busy. Students got in line to vote as early as 3:45 a.m. Wait times peaked at four hours at about 9 a.m. Even late in the day, volunteers for Democrat Barack Obama still were organizing on campus, trying to turn out the vote.

In Clayton County, election officials were investigating reports that poll workers in three precincts refused to allow voters whose residencies were in question to cast provisional ballots. It was unclear how many voters might have been affected.

Fulton County polls opened on time, and none sought to extend voting hours past 7 p.m., according to a county press release. Voting machines went down for a short period of time at two polls, one in College Park and another in Hapeville, the county said.

At a College Park precinct, poll workers were reported withholding provisional ballots from voters who did not have government-issued photo identification, said Clare Schexnyder of Georgia Election Protection, which monitored polling places.

The Election Protection Coalition, a national nonpartisan cooperative of about a dozen voting rights groups, said it received almost 700 complaints from Georgia, most about discrepancies in registration lists.

State election officials questioned the validity of many of the complaints.

In a statement, Handel said that “nearly all” polling places opened “on time and without complication.” Her office deployed about 150 investigators and technicians to check on voting problems around the state. They found no significant disruptions, Carrothers said.

Handel credited advance voting for reducing Election Day stress on precincts. About 2 million Georgians — 35 percent of the state’s registered voters — cast ballots early.

“Advance voting was brilliant,” said Linda Schneider, who ran a Cherokee County precinct.

“It’s been busy but easy,” said DeKalb County elections official Mary Frances Weeks.

Staff writers Staff writers Megan Matteucci, Rhonda Cook, Kristina Torres, Kay Powell, April Hunt and Mary MacDonald contributed to this report.