‘A hot, flaming mess’: Georgia primary beset by chaos, long lines

Some voters in Georgia are experiencing hourslong lines to cast their ballots in Tuesday's primary, with officials trading blame for who, exactly, is responsible for the latest trip-up in holding an election during the pandemic.

Since polls opened early Tuesday morning, voters in Georgia — especially in and around Atlanta — have reported problems with voting machines and long lines, with some voters leaving without casting a ballot. The problems are a troubling sign for the burgeoning swing state's ability to handle the expected high turnout for November's presidential election.

“We’ve received reports about long lines, polling sites that have opened late and broken machines,” Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said. The Lawyers’ Committee maintains a national voter protection hotline. “What’s disturbing is that these problems appear widespread, and not isolated.”

“It has been most disturbing to hear about voters who have given up. Voters who were not able to withstand the long wait times, voters who had one shot this morning,” she added. “Those are people who may be flatly disenfranchised.”

“It’s a hot, flaming, f---ing mess,” Nse Ufot, executive director of New Georgia Project, said in a text Tuesday. At multiple sites in Fulton County, new voting machines were down, some sites were waiting for technical support and others had difficulty logging into the machines, Ufot said.

New Georgia Project, which mobilizes young voters of color in Georgia, is tracking voter experiences and reports from their organizers at polling sites through their election protection app.