(ATLANTA) — Long lines snaked around some Georgia polling places as Democratic candidates vying to take on Republican Sen. David Perdue in November faced off in a primary election Tuesday. The voting comes after weeks of delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I always vote in primaries, but the political times that we’re having right now, or the moment that we’re having is scary, and it’s very important I feel like to voice our concerns through our voting,” voter Layla Cantlebary, 39, said as she waited to vote Tuesday in Roswell, Georgia, outside Atlanta.
“With all the civil unrest, it just underscores the importance of coming out and voting for somebody who you feel is going to lead the country to a better place than we are in currently,” she said.
Georgia’s chief election officer has warned voters could face long lines and results may be slow to be reported, as poll closures and virus restrictions complicate in-person voting and counties work to process a huge increase in ballots received by mail.
The long lines were already evident shortly after voting began at multiple polling places, including the elementary school in Roswell where Cantlebary and about 60 people waited.
Cantlebary, 39, said she arrived at the polling site about 15 minutes before it opened at 7 a.m. and waited more than an hour to vote. The self-described liberal said her absentee ballot never arrived.
In Atlanta, a line of voters Tuesday morning wrapped around the block. Several sat on the sidewalk as they waited. Most of them wore masks.
State Rep. William Boddie said there was a “complete meltdown in Fulton County.” He visited two polling locations that had long lines in his district, but says he spoke to representatives in other counties and the problems appear to be happening statewide.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said voters in line at one of Atlanta’s largest voting precincts said all the machines were down. She encouraged voters to stay in line and said poll workers should offer voters a provisional ballot if machines are out.
“If you are in line, PLEASE do not allow your vote to be suppressed,” the mayor said on Twitter.
Top Democrats in the Senate primary include former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff, former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and former candidate for lieutenant governor Sarah Riggs Amico.
Perdue, a close Trump ally, is seeking a second term in November as Republicans look to hold the White House and a Senate majority. He drew no GOP primary opposition.
The race has proven to be anything but predictable, with election day postponed and campaigns forced almost entirely online because of the coronavirus and the final days seeing widespread protests and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Criticism of the Trump administration’s response on both fronts has added fuel to Democrats’ ambitions of winning in Georgia, where Republicans dominate statewide elections, but Democrats are increasingly making gains.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of votes, the top two finishers will advance to an Aug. 11 primary runoff. Other Democrats in the race include former ACLU of Georgia head Maya Dillard Smith, Air Force veteran James Knox and Marckeith DeJesus.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that voters should expect longer lines. He also said his office won’t begin to release partial results until “the last precinct has closed” and predicted the winners may not be known for days.
“To get a good concept of where we are with the election — who won, who lost, or who’s in the runoff, things like that — I would think that could take upward of a couple days in some of these really tightly contested elections,” Raffensperger said.
Voters will also select party nominees for U.S. House races and for state House and Senate. Other state and local races are on the ballot as well.
Ossoff entered the Senate race in September with the endorsement of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, as well as some built-in name recognition from his highly publicized 2017 special election loss to Republican Karen Handel for an Atlanta-area U.S. House seat. The young media executive has led in fundraising and has made fighting inequality and corruption a core part of his message.
Tomlinson, who was the first woman elected mayor of Columbus in 2010, has racked up a slate of endorsements of her own, including civil rights leader and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.
Amico previously served as an executive in her family’s car-hauling company. Best known for her 2018 run for lieutenant governor, which she lost to Republican Geoff Duncan.
More than 1.2 million Georgians have already voted early, Raffensperger said Monday. A majority of those ballots were cast absentee by mail after the Republican elections chief sent absentee ballot applications to 6.9 million active registered voters, hoping to ease pressure on in-person poll operations.
Georgia postponed primary elections twice because of the pandemic. The state’s March 24 presidential primaries were first moved to May 19, when voters were set to choose party nominees for other 2020 races. As coronavirus infections and deaths mounted, election day was pushed back again to Tuesday.
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Associated Press writers Sudhin Thanawala in Roswell, Georgia, and Desiree Seals in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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