'Complete meltdown': Georgia voters wait in line for hours to cast ballots amid pandemic
By Associated Press -June 9, 2020 1:53 PM
Widespread problems included trouble with Georgia's new voting system and a shortage of poll workers.
Some voters waited more than three hours to cast ballots on Tuesday amid reports of voting machine malfunctions in Georgia, a general election battleground, which held twice-delayed primary elections with a shortage of poll workers and social-distancing precautions caused by the coronavirus.
Widespread problems included trouble with Georgia's new voting system that combines touchscreens with scanned paper ballots in races for president, U.S. Senate, and dozens of other contests. Some voters said they joined the lines after requesting mail-in ballots that never arrived. One state lawmaker, Rep. William Boddie of Atlanta, said there was a "complete meltdown" in Georgia's largest county, where people of color represent a majority of the population.
Americans were also voting Tuesday in primaries in West Virginia, Nevada, and South Carolina following months of social restrictions to guard against the spread of COVID-19 and a week of massive protests against police brutality.
Perhaps more than other states, Georgia offers the most significant test to date for whether the energy related to protests across the nation would translate to political change at the voting booth. The problems that plagued the state's voting system, however, will likely make it difficult to draw any firm conclusions.
https://americanindependent.com/georgia-primaries-voting-delays-machine-malfunctions-long-lines-atlanta-2020-election/
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While there was no real competition for each of the presidential candidates on Tuesday, Georgia is a must-win for the Republican president in November.
The state offers a wide swath of rural and small-town counties where Trump remains immensely popular among white majorities. His margins there four years ago helped overcome his deficits in metropolitan areas, including losses in key suburban Atlanta counties that hadn't been won by Democrats in a presidential election in four decades.
But Democrats point to their successes since — and to voter registration trends that show a swath of new voters in the metropolitan areas where the GOP has struggled.
Biden's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, mentions Georgia along with Arizona and Texas as the next three states that Democrats can flip. Still, O'Malley Dillon holds up Arizona as the best opportunity for Democrats, implicitly tamping down expectations in Georgia.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I just love Hawaii..............
I moved here. It's not for everybody but I'm happy to be here.
We're doing good in the taking care of business in the COVID dept, too.
Mahalo for all you do on DU, turbinetree 
A while back I received an application for an absentee ballot from the state, which I filled out and mailed. I received a ballot in plenty of time, which I also filled out ...but did not get mailed. Silly me.
No problem, though. I took the ballot with me to the polling place at about three o'clock this afternoon and turned it in to one of the poll workers. The poll worker wrote 'cancelled' on the absentee ballot envelope, also cancelled it on the computer, checked my ID, and gave me a machine card to allow me to vote on the spot. I decided to vote in person because, for reasons I can't really articulate, I was uncomfortable handing in the absentee ballot and walking away. Since my cancelled ballot was casually placed aside in a pile on the table, showing they seemed to have no official spot for them in the event of this scenario, I think my unease may have been justified. On the other hand, the poll worker made a point of telling me it was cancelled on the computer rolls, so maybe it was not a big deal. 
Also, I wanted to see the new machines.
There were eight machines in four rows of two, which for my podunk area seems like a lot, but is also about the number I was expecting to see given past years' experience. My voting machine seemed to work just fine. My votes registered easily and accurately as far as I could tell -- voting for Joe felt great btw. There's a fancy printer next to every voting machine, so after I was finished voting, a paper version of my ballot was printed. I carried it over to a supervised ballot box and placed it inside. A tiny screen lit up saying, 'your ballot is cast' after the paper went into the slot, and then another person down the line gave me a 'Georgia voter' sticker.
Everyone was very pleasant, there were no lines, though I was told voting had been steady all day. I did notice that while there was no crowd to speak of, there was a constant trickle of people coming in and going out. I've been dealing with a painful dental problem for the last few days, so the effort involved in asking questions or doing any more than I did was just too much.
I was masked and gloved. I noticed only one poll worker wearing a mask, a black woman at the end who handed me a sticker. We shared an eye smile. She was the only poll worker there who was not white. With the exception of the sticker table, there were two PWs at each station, which is the usual number -- so there was no shortage of workers in my area. I saw one other voter with a mask, no gloves. I was very disappointed about that.
I am sorry to hear some urban areas have been having trouble getting through lines, etc. That's not right and it doesn't have to be that way.
