Early Voting Gets Underway

Fulton County voters in nine cities will select city leaders. That includes Fulton and DeKalb residents in the city of Atlanta who will choose city council members, a mayor and school board members. And in a non-presidential election year, county election officials say they’re expecting a lower turnout. That was also the case on the first day of early voting. Richard Barron is Fulton’s new Director of registrations and elections.

“So far today it’s been light, but we’re hoping that people will vote early. If there ends up being an issue with their voter registration it’s easier to research and correct it then it is on election day, because people have to go to their assigned sight on election day.”

Last year, Fulton County was widely criticized after a number of county voters had to cast provisional ballots because their names could not be found on voter rolls. But in his first election at the helm, Barron says the county is ready for both early voting and election day. He says that includes changing the way it trains poll workers and eliminating a backlog in the entering of voter registration applications.

“We will own up to any mistakes, we’re going to manage any errors, and try to correct any errors and try to learn from our mistakes. That’s where you learn the most.”

Meanwhile, other metro Atlanta counties also experienced light turnout. Maxine Daniels is the Director of Registrations and Elections for DeKalb County.

“Traffic has been very slow this morning. The the little traffic we have had though has been voters who are DeKalb-Atlanta voters who we are not able to service at this location. For this particular election, Fulton County is conducting the entire election for the city of Atlanta.”

Gwinnett County also reported few voters. Lynn Ledford is the elections director for the County.

“We’re only expecting about a 30 percent turnout total, so as of 1:15 we only had 35 voters today.”

Early voting lasts through Friday November 1st.