Fulton County hoping to avoid long runoff election lines

ATLANTA - Fulton County officials are taking steps to avoid a repeat of the June primary election, during which people saw ridiculously long voter lines and had to wait hours just to cast a ballot.

Fulton County Commission Chair Rob Pitts set up a task force to look into what went wrong and how to fix it. For the runoff, Pitts said the county is focusing and what he calls the three Ps... people, places, and processes.

In June a number of poll workers didn't show up. Some of those who did were unprepared, especially for the new voting machines. Pitts said the county has worked hard to recruit additional poll works and has spent more time training them for the runoff election.

Primary election lines were made longer because a number of precincts had to close, forcing more voters into the ones that remained open. Fulton has added voting locations and says there are 174 different precincts for the runoff.

The June primary was the first time Georgia's new voting machines were put into use. A number of them ended up malfunctioning, a problem made worse by the lack of people able to get them back up and running. So Fulton County is placing technicians in the precincts ready to solve any problems that pop up. Officials will also have extra support staff available to be dispatched to locations with issues the technicians can't resolve.