What, exactly, happened? Who was to blame? And is there any chance we won't see a repeat of Tuesday's debacle in the November election in the Peach State?
I put all of those questions to my single favorite political reporter in the state -- Greg Bluestein of the AJC. Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.
Cillizza: How bad was it?
Bluestein: What happened was an entirely predictable yet still infuriatingly frustrating breakdown in the voting process that appeared to disproportionately affect majority-black precincts in metro Atlanta.
While some Republicans note that many Georgia counties, particularly in rural areas, pulled off the election without a hitch, voters in many precincts across metro Atlanta faced a series of problems.
Long lines. Malfunctioning voting machines. Key equipment that wasn't in place when the polls opened. Voter confusion, and more crowded precincts, because roughly 10% of polling sites were closed due to the pandemic. Fewer elections staffers, and inadequate training for newly hired workers.
You know there's a crisis when the secretary of state's office and the Republican leader of the Georgia House both announce separate investigations into the process hours before the polls close.
Many admirably waited in long lines through downpours and searing heat, and some stayed beyond midnight to exercise their right to vote. But untold numbers were dissuaded from voting by the lengthy lines and other issues that plagued the primary.
Cillizza: After what happened in 2018 in Georgia in the governor's race, how are we back here again?
Bluestein: That's the rub. That race was largely defined by a clash over ballot access between Democrat Stacey Abrams, who built a national reputation as a voting rights activist, and Republican Brian Kemp, who as secretary of state was Georgia's top election official.
After Kemp's victory, Republicans backed an overhaul of voting rules meant to address some of those issues and replace Georgia's aging voting computers with a $104 million new system of touchscreen machines that print out paper ballots and then store them on optical scanning machines.
But voting rights activists have argued those were half-measures or misguided steps to address systemic problems with Georgia's election process. They fear the system will still be vulnerable to hacking, and that training workers and voters to use the computers would prove daunting.
What's clear is elections officials fell short of the goal of smoothly administering the vote, and critics from both parties are concerned that it foreshadows greater difficulties in November, when President Donald Trump and two Republican US senators are on Georgia's ballot.
Cillizza: Was this user error as the elections office suggested? Or was there more going on here?
Bluestein: There's a long-running blame game in Georgia between state elections officials charged with overseeing the vote and county staffers that actually administer it. But there's no doubt that there were plenty of warning signs.
Problems mounted long before Tuesday's primary. More than 10% of precincts closed, droves of poll workers quit and the primary was postponed because of the coronavirus.
The final day of early voting, last Friday, should have been a wake-up call to the challenges ahead: Some people waited eight hours to cast their ballots. And yet problems still plagued Tuesday's vote.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office denied there were any technical glitches with the voting equipment and blamed county officials for failing to prepare staffers for the steep "learning curve" to use the new voting system.
Several precinct managers across metro Atlanta identified specific technical problems with the voting equipment in interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And county leaders bristled at Raffensperger's charge that they were the cause of the delays.
"If there was a failure of leadership, it starts where the buck should stop, at the top. The eradication of any 'learning curve' rests squarely at the feet of the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his office," said DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond.
What's easy to forget is that turnout still soared. State officials sent absentee ballot request forms to 6.9 million active voters, and Georgians cast more than 1.2 million early votes, mostly by mail. That far eclipses the early-vote totals of the 2016 primary.
It also served up more challenges for elections workers. A primary that was supposed to be a rollout for new high-tech machines also became a test of how quickly staffers could tally old-fashioned paper ballots inundating local offices.
Cillizza: Are there concrete steps being taken to try and fix this? If so, what?
There are a few avenues.
Georgia lawmakers are resuming the legislative session on Monday after a months-long hiatus, and they're under immediate pressure to address the issues. The state NAACP plans a rally that day to demand lawmakers take up the "electoral failures."
Top of mind will be a measure pending in the Legislature that would require elections officials to add precincts, poll workers or voting equipment to address long lines. But Democrats are concerned it will sow even more confusion ahead of the November vote.
The secretary of state's office may also seek to head off more problems at the polls by expanding mail-in voting and sending ballot request forms to millions of active Georgia voters again -- though he'd face opposition within the state GOP if he does so. He could also take steps to bolster training and clear equipment issues.
But maybe the most likely arbiter of change is the legal system. A range of lawsuits seeking changes, big and small, to Georgia's election system are working through the courts. And Abrams said late Tuesday the Fair Fight voting rights group was weighing whether to "soon" file a fresh legal complaint.
Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "The chances of the November vote going off smoothly in Georgia are __________." Now, explain.
Bluestein: "Slim."
If Georgians didn't realize their state was at the center of a national voting rights debate after the 2018 midterms, they should now. In November, even more eyes will be on Georgia.
That's because it's likely to become a legit 2020 presidential battleground, as Joe Biden aims to become the first Democrat to carry Georgia since Bill Clinton won the state in 1992. Even Republicans who downplayed that prospect in past elections acknowledge that Georgia's up for grabs now.
With two US Senate races on the ballot, two competitive suburban US House seats and a battle for control of the Legislature, much is at stake.
Georgia officials have struggled to pull off a clean election even without a pandemic, or a new voting system, or increasingly tight statewide races. The voters I interviewed hope they can set aside their differences and use the next few months to hash out a better plan to avoid a November debacle.
If not, more Georgians will lose faith in the electoral system.
Markisha Steele waited more than three hours to cast her ballot at a DeKalb County high school on Tuesday. She told me it was fitting that she wore a hat that read "bully" because that's how she felt like officials were treating voters. "It's like they don't even care," she said.
"complete" - Google News
June 11, 2020 at 01:04AM
https://ift.tt/2YnLhTD
How Georgia's primary voting became a 'complete meltdown' - CNN
"complete" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Fvz4Dj
https://ift.tt/2YsogAP
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "How Georgia's primary voting became a 'complete meltdown' - CNN"
Post a Comment