More than 40 Fulton County voters have accidentally cast the wrong ballot Tuesday for their local state House election in Atlanta.
State and local officials are now working to help get the right ballot to affected voters who come in before polls close at 7 p.m. The problem involves one precinct and polling location, according to Fulton County officials, meaning voters would have gone to the correct polling location but received the wrong ballot.
It stemmed from a decision last year by the state Legislature to tweak district lines between House District 59 and House District 60, seats held by two Democrats on the south end of the city. District voting maps should have been updated prior to this year’s state primary election, which was the first election involving those seats since the changes were made.
They weren’t.
Fulton County elections director Richard Barron said voters living on a few blocks between the districts were affected by the changes. State officials said 42 voters had already cast the wrong ballots before 4 p.m. — votes that can’t be recalled because they are already recorded as cast.
Barron said he understood that the Georgia Democratic Party found the problem several days ago and tried to notify the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. The office, however, apparently did not see the notification until today when officials reached out to county officials to correct it, he said.
Under Georgia law, local elections officials are responsible for making sure voters are assigned to the right district. Mistakes, however, are not uncommon. The office is currently looking at Dougherty County in South Georgia after several problems have surfaced with voting maps, including voters placed into the wrong district over the last several years.
State officials said they would review what happened Tuesday in Fulton to find out why the maps did not get updated and to prevent it from happening again.
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