FULTON COUNTY, GA. — We’re less than a month away from the start of early voting for November’s election and there’s new locations in Fulton County to make it easier for you.
One of them will be the second largest polling site in the state behind State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta.
The Georgia International Convention Center in College Park will have dozens of voting machines.
“We’re supposed to have 50 machines,” said Executive Director Mercedes Miller.
Connected to the airport by the SkyTrain, voters can get to the GICC by MARTA, bus, or by car.
“So there’s no excuse, you can park free. We just want people to exercise their right to vote,” Miller said.
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Since March, much of the GICC’s vast exhibition space sat empty, so they teamed up with the county, the board of elections and city of College Park to offer it up for voting.
“So I think we’ll be able to accommodate most crowds and peak times,” said College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom.
Broom said they don’t want a repeat of June’s primary, where the last day of early voting she saw 75 still in line come midnight at the local library.
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“The last person didn’t leave till after 2 a.m.,” Broom said.
She knew something had to be done and they could do better this time.
“Even outside all the exhibit space, there is 90,000+ square feet of finished space like this: the lobbies/concourse for everyone to get out of the heat, sun, rain… and plenty of space for people to keep 6 feet apart,” Broom said. “Where they can stand on the inside, we can social distance them.”
The 50 ballot marking machines here will be one of two dozen early voting sites in Fulton, where there were only a max of eight during the primary.