Runoff Election Running Smoothly Across the State

(Atlanta) - The Senate runoff election in Georgia is running smoothly throughout the state with no reports of long lines. Wait times average just 1 minute at polling locations throughout the Peach State.

“After wait times averaging just 2 minutes on November 3rd, Georgia’s election administration is hitting a new milestone for effectiveness and efficiency,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “I have always said that after every election, half the people will be happy and half will be disappointed, but everyone should be confident in the reliability of the results.”

Election Day for the Georgia Senate runoffs has progressed with few issues and almost nonexistent wait times. As of 12:45 p.m., no polling locations reported wait times longer than 30 minutes and only 1 location reported wait times longer than 20 minutes.

The only reported issues occurred in Columbia County, Georgia, just outside of Augusta (parts of which are in the 12th District), and were resolved by 10 a.m. At no point did voting stop as voters continued casting ballots on emergency ballots, in accordance with the procedures set out by Georgia law.

In Columbia County, a small number of the keys that start up the paper-ballot scanners were programmed incorrectly. Additionally, a few poll worker cards were programmed incorrectly, meaning some poll workers were unable to start the touch screen voting machines used for paper-ballot voting. The correct keys and voter cards were delivered to the relevant precincts with a law enforcement escort. Issues were resolved by 10am.

Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record turnout in 2020, with over 1.3 million absentee by mail voters and over 3.6 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.

 

###