Bibb voters had ‘a longer wait than normal’ on first day of voting for Nov. election

More than 1,000 people went to the polls Monday for the first day of early voting in Bibb County.

“At this turnout rate, we’ll be done voting in two weeks,” said Mike Kaplan, chair of the Bibb County Board of Elections.

At first, Kaplan didn’t realize why so many people decided to vote on Monday, but then he remembered that some people were off work for Columbus Day.

The Board of Elections office had a line that wrapped around the building and went back down to the other end of the parking lot when the polls opened at 8:30 a.m.

Bibb County had 1,756 people vote Monday, with 872 of those ballots cast at the Board of Elections office. On the first day of early voting for the runoff election in August, 471 people voted, and 331 voters cast their ballots on the first day of early voting for the June primary and general elections.

Few issues

Other than the long lines, the only complications in Bibb County happened at the Elaine H. Lucas Senior Center where they had trouble with the electronic poll pads, Kaplan said.

Later in the day, the Elaine Lucas Senior Center and the Theron Ussery Recreation Center had the wait down to around 30 minutes maximum.

“A 30 minute wait is not bad considering we have a pandemic and we have social distancing, and we’re trying our best to do all that,” Kaplan said. “Just remember Mr. Rogers had a word of the day, and my word of the day friends is patience, and I want to thank the citizens of Macon for their patience today. It’s been a long day for everybody. We appreciate it.”

The line at the Board of Elections office took people anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours to get through.

‘A very important election’

Tomika Keene waited in line with Jackie Jones for around three hours before they were able to vote. Keene decided to vote early because it worked better with her schedule, she said.

“It’s a very important election. I just wanted to do my part as a citizen,” Keene said.

Andrea Thomas, who works at the Medical Center, Navicent Health, said she has a crazy schedule, so it was better for her to vote early when she knew she had time. She waited around two hours to vote, she said.

“It was a longer wait than normal, but it was worth it. I’m glad I went ahead and did it today, she said. “All the workers here, they gave out water and made sure everybody was Okay. Anybody who needed to go ahead and vote early because they couldn’t stand in line, they were able to. They did the best they could with how many people we had. They gave us information on other sites that were a little bit quicker if we wanted to try those.”

Although the Board of Elections didn’t expect such long lines on the first day of early voting, Kaplan said they knew they were going to at least have some lines, so they prepared by providing water, taking people’s trash, letting people know about other voting locations and trying to communicate with people as much as possible.

“We’re just trying to make everybody’s voting experience as comfortable as possible. We know there’s going to be waiting and so we have water available for everybody,” Kaplan said.

Voting worth the wait

Aasim Rahim and his wife arrived at the Board of Elections around 10:30 a.m. and finished voting around 2 p.m., but he said the weather was nice to be standing outside. Rahim thought the lines were so long because of the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

“I decided to early vote because I realized that on Nov. 3 the line will be much longer than it was today,” he said. “It was excellent. The workers there, they provided us water. The people in line were very conversational, and I really enjoyed myself, and I got my sticker.”

Jace White, who stood next to Rahim in line, said although he didn’t expect the wait to be so long based on his experience early voting in the past, the wait wasn’t bad because he brought a book to pass the time.

Because White is a teacher, he had the day off for fall break, so he thought voting would be a great way to start his break.

“It’s definitely our duty to make sure we’re casting our vote and letting our voices be heard,” he said.

Brenda Malcon decided to vote early because of the coronavirus pandemic and because she wanted to make sure her vote counted, he said. She waited 45 minutes, and she said everything went smoothly.

“Everybody should get out and vote. I’m surprised I saw a lot of young folks out here today voting. It matters. You need to let your voice be heard,” she said. “If we don’t get out and vote, we’re not gonna have any changes.”

This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 7:00 AM.