Minimal voting issues, short wait times reported across Georgia, secretary of state’s office says

ATLANTA — More than 1,000,000 Georgians left their houses and took to the polls in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff between Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.

State election officials say that even with high voter turnout, they saw minimal issues and relatively short voting lines.

Channel 2′s Sophia Choi found about 100 people outside Park Tavern in midtown Atlanta when the polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.

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Fulton County Interim Elections Director Nadine Williams says all polls across the county opened on time without any issues and very little wait times after the initial rush.

Laronnia White, 67, told Choi that she voted early at Welcome All Park in south Fulton County last week, but when she checked the Secretary of State’s website, she says it showed she hadn’t voted since early November.

Channel 2 Action News reached out to the Fulton County Board of Elections on White’s behalf and learned her vote hadn’t been saved, but has now. Channel 2 hasn’t received similar reports, so it was likely an isolated incident.

“Just think, if it doesn’t work and there are several other people at precincts and they don’t check, that means it’s wasted. That means you vote doesn’t count although you think it does,” White said.

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In Cobb County, Channel 2′s Michael Seiden went to several voting locations and did not find any lines. Some voters told him they were in and out in as little as 90 seconds.

But when he traveled down to Henry County, he found a different story.

“We was just waiting and waiting and waiting, and, meantime, the line was just growing out here!,” voter Kenneth Bunn said.

Bunn says he and his 20-year-old daughter showed up early to vote at Salem Baptist Church, but as soon as they got inside, the poll pads went down.

Henry County election officials released a statement to Channel 2 that read, “There was a technical glitch with the polling pads at that specific location and that staff followed procedure by utilizing emergency ballots.”

They also advised that the emergency ballots are there as a backup in case of a technical malfunction and will be scanned in Tuesday night.

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