Election live updates: Miller, Whitby head to runoff for Macon mayor
It’s Election Day in Middle Georgia. Polls are open until 7 p.m.
The Telegraph will report on dozens of local races, providing early voting totals and final results. Reporters will visit polling places and watch parties and focus on the Macon-Bibb County mayor’s race, the Bibb County district attorney’s race and the Houston County district attorney’s race.
If you experience issues at your polling place, please contact us at breaking@macon.com.
Live updates
1:55 a.m. — The election board announced unofficial vote totals for six Bibb County commissioner races, with 8,000 absentee ballots not counted:
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 1
Valerie Wynn: 3,182 votes
- John M. Adams Jr.: 1,274 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 2
Paul Bronson: 897
Weston Stroud: 480
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 4
- Mallory C. Jones III: 3,202 votes
- George Thomas: 1,126 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 5
- Seth Clark: 1,241 votes
- Carlton Kitchens: 899 votes
- Erion Smith: 786 votes
Louie Hargrove: 155 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 6
Raymond Wilder: 1,674
Robert Abbott: 779
Donald L. Druitt Sr.: 278
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 7
- Bill Howell: 1,729 votes
Bonnie H. Thompson: 1,054 votes
- Tim Rivers: 425 votes (updated total not yet available)
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 8
Virgil Watkins Jr.: 1,560 votes
- Stacy R. Jenkins: 449 votes
- Michelle Parks: 314 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 9
- Al “Tiger” Tillman: 1,781 votes
- Brendalyn Bailey: 839 votes
1:40 a.m. — Anita Reynolds Howard has defeated incumbent Bibb County district attorney David Cooke. Howard has more than 17,000 votes to Cooke’s 6,545.
1:30 a.m. — While some 8,000 absentee ballots still need to be counted, it appears Lester Miller will face Cliff Whitby in a runoff election for Macon-Bibb County mayor on Aug. 11.
12:31 a.m. — The Bibb County election board still has not released voting totals from additional precincts.
A U.S. Senate Democrat primary is led by Jon Ossoff, who has 46.34% of the vote with 38.17% of counties/precincts reporting. If he fails to reach more than 50%, he’ll enter a runoff election, most likely against either Sarah Riggs Amico (14.34% of the vote) or Teresa Pike Tomlinson (12.76% of the vote).
11:01 p.m. — With all of Peach County reporting, Anita Howard leads David Cooke 11,404 votes to 4,581 in the Bibb County DA’s race.
10:55 p.m. — In the Houston County District Attorney’s race, incumbent George Hartwig is leading Arthur J. Creque 2,401 votes (71.48%) to 958 (28.52%) with 11/16 precincts reporting.
10:45 p.m. — With five out of seven precincts reporting in Peach County Anita Howard is now leading David Cook 10,782 votes to 4,362 in the Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s race. That district covers Bibb, Crawford and Peach County. All of Crawford County’s votes have been tallied and about 17,000 from Bibb County.
10:37 p.m. — According to the Bibb County election board, most of the local votes should be reported in the next 30 minutes or so, except for some absentee ballots.
10:17 p.m. — Early, absentee and in-person votes from about 10 Bibb County districts are in, as well as every ballot except provisional ballots from Crawford county, for the Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney race. Votes from Peach County, which is also in the distrct, have not been reported yet. While this is a Democrat primary, there are no Republican candidates, so this race will serve as the general election as well.
Macon Judicial Circuit DA
Anita Reynolds Howard: 9,053 votes
- David Cooke: 4,009 votes
10:12 p.m. — Here’s more local vote totals from a combination of early, absentee and in-person votes.
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 1
Valerie Wynn: 2,026 votes
- John M. Adams Jr.: 634 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 2
- Paul Bronson: 850 votes
- Weston Stroud: 449 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 4
- Mallory C. Jones III: 1,535 votes
- George Thomas: 523 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 5
- Seth Clark: 812 votes
- Carlton Kitchens: 561 votes
- Erion Smith: 392 votes
Louie Hargrove: 97 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 6
- Raymond Wilder: 871 votes
- Robert Abbott: 533 votes
- Donald L. Druitt Sr.: 332 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 7
- Bill Howell: 932 votes
Bonnie H. Thompson: 632 votes
- Tim Rivers: 425 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 8
Virgil Watkins Jr.: 1,149 votes
- Stacy R. Jenkins: 314 votes
- Michelle Parks: 229 votes
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner, District 9
- Al “Tiger” Tillman: 1,116 votes
- Brendalyn Bailey: 482 votes
10 p.m. — We have our first voting numbers from the Bibb County Board of Elections. The board is reporting from 1,143 early votes, 8,618 absentee votes and 8,225 in-person votes from 10 precincts so far:
9:23 p.m. — Statewide early voting totals won’t be available until at least after 10:10 p.m., according to the most recent announcement from the Secretary of State’s office. Another issue with absentee ballots is that some voters checked boxes rather than filling them in.
8:30 p.m. — The Secretary of State’s office announced it won’t release voting totals until all precincts in the state close at 9 p.m. Local election boards may release totals beforehand.
8:08 p.m. — The Associated Press has called the Georgia Democrat presidential primary for Joe Biden, despite the fact that the Secretary of State’s office hasn’t reported a single vote, and AP is only reporting 1% of precincts.
7:20 p.m. — The Bibb County election board chair Mike Kaplan said vote tallies from every absentee ballot most likely won’t be available tonight. There are issues digitally recording the ballots, because the paper the state printed them on is so thin. The county received almost 17,000 absentee ballots, so it’s unclear whether we’ll know the outcome of some local races tonight.
7 p.m. — Polls in Bibb County and other Middle Georgia counties have now closed. Early voting totals have yet to be released.
6 p.m. — While polls close at 7 p.m., it’s likely early voting totals won’t be available until later in the evening. The election board will wait until polls close to tabulate early votes.
4:30 p.m. — Hundreds of voters are standing in long lines in Atlanta, as depicted in this New York Times drone video:
Issues with new voting machines have resulted in issues across the state.
The Bibb County election board chair Mike Kaplan clarified that absentee ballots which can’t be read by computers will be “quarantined” and later “electronically corrected” and counted.
3 p.m. — LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright, co-founders of the Black Voters Matter Fund, issued a statement regarding Georgia voting issues. Both Brown and Albright live and work in Georgia.
“What we’re seeing across the state of Georgia right now is the complete and total failure of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state representatives to protect our elections. Officials had already let down Georgia voters who requested absentee ballots and never received them. As the state continues to reel from the deadly coronavirus, withholding mail-in ballots is not only a flagrant violation of voters’ rights; it’s a public health disaster. Now, as voters, poll workers, and volunteers statewide report broken voting machines and long, excessive wait times, it’s clear that our local state election system is broken.”
Raffensperger has blamed voting issues largely on county election directors and a lack of training for poll workers, saying “By and large, what it comes down to is the competence of the county director. It’s not really a machine error. What it’s been is user error, just lack of training for the poll workers.”
2:45 p.m. — Liz Fabian with the Center for Collaborative Journalism interviewed Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections chair Mike Kaplan regarding voting issues in Bibb County this morning. Kaplan said that there were issues in northwest and south Macon in the morning, but those issues have been resolved.
Another issue is the paper state absentee ballots were printed on. The paper is so thin that some of the information is “bleeding through” to the other side and causing concerns with the machines counting the votes. Kaplan said the ballots produced by the Bibb County election board and mailed out in March are fine.
Kaplan said the election board will have to manually count some of the absentee ballots, but he’s not sure how many yet.
1:30 p.m. — Voters and poll workers reported issues with new voting machines at several locations Tuesday morning, according to Telegraph reporters and Georgia Public Broadcasting, but those issues have largely cleared up. One poll worker called the issues “on the job training.” Calls to the Bibb County election board to discuss the issues have gone directly to voicemail.
12:45 p.m. — Voting machine issues are resulting in long lines in Atlanta. The New York Times reports poll workers are having difficulties operating new polling machines, with COVID-19 restrictions already contributing to longer lines.
GPB is reporting three polling places in Macon had machine issues this morning.
Some voters had to receive provisional ballots, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Capitol Beat reports Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger blamed the problems on “a lack of training and planning” by county elections officials, noting most of Georgia’s 159 counties were not experiencing technical issues with voting machines. Counties like Cobb, Richmond and Muscogee were running smoothly, he said.
“By and large, what it comes down to is the competence of the county director,” Raffensperger said in an interview. “It’s not really a machine error. What it’s been is user error, just lack of training for the poll workers.”
Bibb County mailed 24,768 ballots, according to the election board, and received almost 17,000 back. Roughly 5,000 voters also voted early. Absentee ballots won’t be counted until the polls close at 7 p.m.
More information
Need a refresher before heading to the polls? Check out these stories:
To find your polling place, visit Macon-Bibb County’s website and scroll down to the map in the bottom half of the page. Type in your address, click the “search” button (the magnifying glass) and details on your polling place will be provided. You can also find your precinct when you check your voter registration status at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov and on your voter registration card.
The Board of Elections’ phone number is 478-621-6622.
Georgia law requires voters to show photo ID when voting in person. Valid photo ID’s include Georgia driver’s licenses, U.S. passports and U.S. military ID.
COVID-19 remains a concern for in person voters. The Secretary of State’s office has distributed information on how to sanitize the touch screen voting machines, check-in poll pads and other equipment. The secretary also encouraging poll workers to wash their hands frequently.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 12:51 PM.
