Folks watching the votes come in for Georgia’s special 6th Congressional District election in April were surely disappointed when Fulton County failed to present its vote totals before midnight.
A memory card error slowed the county down in reporting its numbers. Totals weren't reported until after 2 a.m.
But this time around, in the runoff election between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel, Fulton had no major gaffs, problems or mistakes to report. In fact, according to the Secretary of State's website Tuesday night, Fulton began posting its early voting results before 8 p.m.
Richard Barron, the county’s director of elections and registrations, said the most common complaint that Fulton heard Tuesday was from people who wanted to vote, but didn’t live in the 6th District.
“Most of the polling places reported slow, but steady,” Barron said at a press briefing at the Fulton County Election Prep Center in Atlanta on Tuesday. “We didn’t expect a massive turnout today because early voting was so high, he said. “Earlier today, someone thought one of our polling places was turning people away … but we ran a little investigation and we didn’t find that to be true.”
Extra police patrols were added at the polls Tuesday because of the suspicious white powder that was sent to homes in Handel's neighborhood last week. Barron said there were no reports of "unruly" behavior at Fulton polls Tuesday.
It rained hard in metro Atlanta on Election Day, but Barron said he didn't think it had an impact on voter turnout. More than 16,000 people had voted in Fulton by 12:30 p.m., and that number grew to more than 26,000 by 3 p.m.
Barron said he estimates Fulton may produce about 40,000 Election Day votes for the runoff.
In April, the wrong card from a polling place was put into the wrong database, which caused problems and a delay. Barron said that wouldn’t happen this time because there is only one race on the ballot.
As of 8:30 p.m., eight Fulton precincts had completely reported with Handel unofficially grabbing 51.77 percent of the vote in the county.
Barron said his goal is to have all Fulton results in by 11 p.m.
“It seems like an ordinary Election Day,” Barron said. “It was quiet and somewhat boring, which is good.”
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