Several of metro Atlanta’s largest counties struggled to report election results Tuesday night, even as residents watched on television and their social media feeds as results came in from across the country.
More than two hours after Georgia’s polls closed, Fulton and Cobb counties hadn’t reported results. Fulton first posted partial results at 9:22 p.m. Jessica Corbitt, a spokesperson for the county, said at 9:15 p.m. that the first cards would be uploaded “soon.”
She said there was “no specific reason” that it took more than two hours to upload the first results, which came while two Fulton County precincts were still open.
“They are close,” she said in a text message.
In Gwinnett County, some early voting results around 8:45 p.m. while DeKalb had a small percentage of votes posted around 8:30 p.m.
“It takes a while for them to be counted,” Dekalb County spokesman Andrew Cauthen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “(Ballots) have to be driven in from all over the county.”
Cauthen said the county has "a lot of absentee ballots" to count, but provided no exact number by 9:45 p.m. "Things are moving normally," he said. "It usually takes a while for things to come in."
In Cobb, the first results went up at 9:23 p.m. with about 12 percent of partial precincts reported. Cobb Elections Director Janine Eveler said there were no specific problems with reporting, just a “huge number of votes on each unit. Taking a while to close down,” she said via email.
Staff Writers Tyler Estep, Raisa Habersham, Arielle Kass and Meris Lutz contributed reporting.
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