Polling places across Georgia open Monday for in-person voting ahead of the June primaries.
Many counties have reduced the number of early voting sites and will limit the number of voters who can be in the room at the same time.
Voters will be encouraged to practice social distancing. Hand sanitizer will be more readily available and plans are to clean the equipment frequently.
Fulton elections director Richard Barron said they can’t require voters to wear masks, but they are encouraging them to.
“We are encouraging voters to wear face coverings,” he said. “We will not have those available for voters, we will have them for all of our poll workers in all of the polling places.”
In metro Atlanta’s Cobb County, Election Director Janine Eveler said new procedures and guidelines have “slowed things down considerably, and people are having to wait.” She said that voters faced wait times of over an hour Monday morning.
Officials hope the push for mail-in voting will mean they’ll see fewer people at the polls. Nearly 300,000 absentee ballots have already been filled out and returned.
The election board on Monday approved an emergency rule allowing election officials to begin processing, but not tabulating, absentee ballots before election day in order to help counties deal with the large influx.
This comes as the state crossed 38,000 confirmed cases, as reported by the Georgia Department of Health. The department also confirmed 1,649 deaths and more than 6,900 hospitalizations as of 7 p.m. Monday.
Fulton Allowing Vehicle Registration Sans Processing Fee
Fulton County is now letting residents renew their vehicle registrations online and at kiosks without processing fees.
Fulton commissioners sponsored legislation at a May 6th board meeting to waive the fees during the coronavirus pandemic.
People can bring their drivers licenses to kiosks in select Kroger grocery stores during business hours.
That includes the Kroger near Ponce City Market and the Kroger on Piedmont Road in North Buckhead.
Kroger Announces Bonuses After Ending ‘Hero’ Pay
The grocery chain Kroger says it will give a one-time bonus to many front line workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Kroger officials said Friday that the money will be paid out in two installments through June.
Qualifying full-time employees will see an extra $400 dollars and some part-time workers can expect $200.
This comes days after Kroger suspended its bonus hero pay for workers, which was an extra $2 an hour.
In an April 1st press release, the company said the pandemic triggered a significantly greater lift in March sales up 30% compared to the same time last year.
Uber Now Required Masks For Riders And Drivers
Starting Monday, Uber drivers and riders who are not wearing a face mask or cover will not be able to use the app.
The company announced the safety measures last week as cities start to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials say users will be asked to take a selfie. Then the new technology will detect the mask as an object in the photo.
Uber says it will keep the mask selfie requirement through the end of June in the United States, Canada, India and most of Europe and Latin America.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
