Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Wait times for voters are reported to be as much as 8 hours at one early polling site in Georgia, and now the Atlanta Journal-Constitution offers this:
Elections officials in Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb counties said the state’s computer system crashed at times and was very slow, bogging down the process.
The computer system allows poll workers to verify whether voters are properly registered and whether they have already voted.
High voter turnout was one of the reasons for the slowdown, said Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for Secretary of State Karen Handel’s office.
This is early voting. Not all polling places are open so there are only a limited number of polling sites checking in voters. The slow-down and crashing of that system has little to do with high voter turnout. It is once again, as it was during the primary in GA, the ironically-named Diebold “ExpressPollbook” registration check-in computer that is slowing things up.
If the system is already not working with only a limited number of poll sites open, what will happen when all polls are open on November 4th?
UPDATE: All of that comes on top of late news that GA has illegally purged and/or flagged nearly 5,000 voters from their registration databases, incorrectly identifying them as “non-citizens”.
UPDATE FROM BRAD: In our continuing desire to try and help bring a smile, even during these difficult times, we offer the ironic, related, very short (appx 1 minute) and amusing “Early Voting” video, as posted at right, just out from our friends who made the great Election Integrity documentary Free For All. Enjoy!
UPDATE FROM BRAD 10/29/08: RAW STORY has video of voters waiting 8 hours to vote in GA. Thank you to those voters who were willing to hang in there! Shame on you to those officials who set up this system that can’t even accommodate the limited numbers of early voters! God save us all next Tuesday. Stay strong and brave people!
“Ironically named?”
Hardly.
Rovianly Named is more like it.
I never expected Obama to win Georgia, not that I don’t think the Democrats shouldn’t fight each and every instance of election fraud. But what’s really disheartening about GA is that, even if Obama loses, one would like to see Saxby Chambliss experience a little karma. With the election fraud, though, he will probably slip through.
again let me emphasize that under law we can:
1. Invoke Reconstruction Act voter protections and allow parallel elections by paper ballot. Because Georgia is a reconstruction state Federal prosecutors can then determine by affidavit the accuracy of these votes. A parallel election by default can be run because voters where prevented from voting in the regular election. See the history of hte Mississippi Challenge. The losers are the evoter companies.
2. Because this is an emergency the Attorney General can hire Election Ontario of Canada to count the paper ballots with money that is saved from not doing business (fraud) with the emachines companies. By all standards this is a certifiable nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a stellar track record.
3. Also in a case that originated in Mississippi by an unprecedented decision, the Court of Appeals set the election aside and scheduled a new one (Hamer v. Campbell, 358 F.2d 215, 5th Cir., 1966). The victory in this case established the precedent that denial of voting rights to Black citizens could result in the SETTING ASIDE of an election, not just an admonition.
Step up and be counted!