Zeta knocks out power, temporarily shutters early voting sites in several GA counties
Power outages caused by Tropical Storm Zeta knocked voting machines offline Thursday, delaying or halting early voting at polling sites across Georgia.
The storm, which made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane Wednesday afternoon in Louisiana, brought heavy rains and gusty winds to the Peach State, leaving 1 million Georgians without power, WSB-TV reported.
The outages were enough to disrupt in-person voting in several counties ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Georgia has seen record-breaking early voting with 2.3 million ballots cast as of Oct. 29, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s Office.
Douglas County initially closed all six of its early voting locations Thursday but later reopened two, according to a message posted to the county government’s website. Elections and voter registration director Milton Kidd said the county was working to get the remaining locations up and running.
“As of 3:15 p.m. we are continuing to try and reopen our other early advance locations but are unable to do so because power to those facilities have not been restored yet,” Kidd said in a statement.
County officials said two additional polling places will open Friday, the final day for early voting in Georgia.
Elections officials in Cobb County also reported outages, saying four of the 11 early-voting locations were experiencing issues as of Thursday afternoon.
In Fulton County, a lack of power delayed the opening of eight early-voting locations. Delays were also reported in at least 16 metro-Atlanta counties, including Henry, Paulding and Gwinnett, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Advance voting is still set to end Friday, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia is pushing for counties to extend the deadline, the newspaper reported.
Outages were reported south of the metro in Macon, but it’s unclear if any polling sites were impacted.
The Secretary of State’s Office said it has been in touch with “storm-affected counties” since Thursday morning.
“While multiple counties experienced short-term power outages, many counties were able to get some or all of their advance voting locations up and running quickly,” Georgia director of elections Chris Harvey said in a statement obtained by McClatchy News. “We are continuing to work with utility companies to identify critical areas where power needs to be restored, and will continue to monitor progress until full power is restored.”
“In addition, our office has been in communication with (Georgia Emergency Management) in case the power outages persist and generators or alternate power sources are needed,” Harvey added.
Georgians who are unable to vote by Friday will have a final opportunity on Election Day, Nov. 3.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 5:38 PM.