Fulton official: 6th District election should be problem free

Today will be different.

The last time Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff were on the ballot, in April, it took Fulton County until after 2 a.m. to count the votes, while the whole nation was watching.

Today, all eyes are again on Fulton in the 6th District Congressional race that has become the most expensive of its kind.

Richard Barron, the county’s director of registration and elections, said the issues that cropped up in April won’t be a problem tonight.

Then, vote counts were delayed because of the number of separate databases the county was juggling. In addition to the 6th District race, there were separate memory cards for Roswell and South Fulton elections, and one in Johns Creek.

So when a memory card for the Roswell council race ended up in the 6th District basket, it sent the whole system into disarray while elections workers tried to figure out what was going on. Results were delayed by more than an hour.

Today, there’s only one race on the ballot.

“It’s apples and oranges as to what we will be dealing with,” Barron said in an email.

He hopes to have results for the closely watched race — considered a referendum on the Donald Trump presidency — by 11 p.m.

But timing isn’t the most important thing.

“My first priority is accuracy,” Barron wrote.

Return to myAJC.com all day for updates on the race.