Gwinnett County is making changes for upcoming elections to prevent long voting lines and other issues voters faced during the June 9 primary, elections director Kristi Royston told legislators Tuesday.
The virtual meeting with the county’s state House of Representatives delegation, described by state Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, as an “autopsy” of the primary’s issues, examined what went wrong and where it’s possible to change procedures and improve the voting experience for the upcoming presidential election in November that is expected to see extremely high voter turnout.
Some changes set to go in November include new ballot scanners that will allow votes to be tallied faster. The primary’s results weren’t certified for nearly two weeks because the county processed a record number of absentee ballots. Voting machine technicians are expected to be at each of Gwinnett’s 156 precincts for the general election as part of a new program from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Other questions remain open, including whether Gwinnett could mail absentee ballot applications to voters on its own or add more drop boxes for absentee ballots.
But some obstacles may be harder, if not impossible, to avoid. Delays caused by necessary social distancing will be harder to eliminate. The safe minimum distances recommended by the CDC are hard to accommodate in some polling places with limited space.
The coronavirus pandemic presented a myriad of challenges to Gwinnett for the primary.
Many veteran poll workers sat the primary out because they were concerned about catching the virus — people over the age of 65 and those with underlying medical conditions are particularly susceptible. New poll workers were recruited, but, because of restrictions imposed by social distancing measures, only precinct managers got in-person training. Online instruction was given to the rest, Royston said. That led to a significant number of poll workers with little to no experience with the new voting machines.
“For many of these poll officials, [Election Day] was the first time they were interacting hands-on with this equipment,” Royston said.
On Election Day, social distancing measures taken to prevent the spread of disease led to fewer voting machines and poll workers in precincts, and lines at some polling places exceeded an hour. The number of voting machines in most precincts were cut by as much as half in order to provide six feet between voters. Some people also had to cancel absentee ballots that they applied for but either never received or never submitted, a process that took up to 20 minutes.
Wait times were worsened by equipment delivery issues at some precincts. Late deliveries caused multiple polling places to open later than the scheduled 7 a.m. start time, and 15 were allowed to stay open past the 7 p.m. closing time in order to make up for the morning’s delays.
These issues were not unique to Gwinnett. Polling places in Fulton County had lines with wait times of more than four hours, and both Fulton and DeKalb counties extended the hours of all of their precincts due to widespread problems, many of which could be traced back to the pandemic.
The pre-election delivery issues in Gwinnett snowballed as the result of an an elections department employee who inspected voting machines out of order, delaying their delivery, Royston said. By the night before the election, machine deliveries to voting places still weren’t finished. Some people who helped elections officials access buildings for polling place setup got so fed up with waiting, they left, locked the doors and didn’t come back, Royston said.
“We knew we had an issue, but we didn’t know until 7 o’clock Monday night how bad it was,” Royston said.
In order to avoid similar issues in the future, the elections department will begin its delivery process further in advance of Election Day and use more trucks to get machines out faster, Royston said.
Concerns about holding future elections during the pandemic loomed for many legislators on the call. Both Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth, and Rep. Donna McLeod, D-Lawrenceville, asked if voters or poll workers would be required to wear masks. Royston said the county believes it cannot legally make anyone, including employees, wear masks, but they will be “strongly encouraged.” All poll workers were provided with masks, gloves, face shields and hand sanitizer, and voters were offered gloves and sanitizer at polling places during the primary.
It’s unclear whether the severity of the pandemic will lessen before the November election, but Gwinnett elections officials are planning to wrangle the same issues faced in June on a much larger scale in the fall, Royston said.
“Planning to run elections in a pandemic is something that I, in my 20-plus years, have not dealt with … We are in uncharted territory,” Royston said. “We are planning for a high turnout, possibly the highest turnout we’ve ever seen, but the question is, where are we going to see them? Are we going to see them by mail, or in advance voting, or on Election Day? We have to prepare for it all. I would say where we are is a great improvement.”
Upcoming elections in Gwinnett County
Aug. 11 - Primary runoff, including Democratic nominee for Gwinnett County Sheriff and Republican and Democratic nominees for Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners District 3; early voting begins July 20
Nov. 3 - General election, including president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives; early voting begins Oct. 12
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