ATLANTA -- The chance to cast ballots on Georgia's first day of in-person early voting Monday had thousands of people waiting for hours to make their voices heard.
Eager voters endured waits of six hours or more in Cobb County, which was once solidly Republican but has voted for Democrats in recent elections, and joined lines that wrapped around buildings in solidly Democratic DeKalb County. They also turned out in big numbers in north Georgia's Floyd County, where Republican support is strong.
With record turnout expected for the presidential election and fears about exposure to the coronavirus, election officials and advocacy groups have been encouraging people to vote early, either in person or by absentee ballot.
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Many answered the call Monday, showing up in numbers that overwhelmed some locations.
Cobb County Elections and Registration Director Janine Eveler said the county had prepared as much as it could, "but there's only so much space in the rooms and parking in the parking lot."
"We're maxing out both of those," she said.
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Hundreds of people slowly moved along a line that snaked back and forth outside Cobb's main elections office in a suburban area northwest of Atlanta. Good moods seemed to prevail, even though some people said at 1 p.m. that they'd been waiting for six hours. A brief cheer went up when a pizza deliverer brought a pie to someone in line.
Steve Davidson, who is Black, said the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis and others had fought too long and hard to secure his place at the polls for him to get tired and leave.
"They've been fighting for decades. If I've got to wait six or seven hours, that's my duty to do that. I'll do it happily," Davidson said.
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At least two counties briefly had problems with the electronic pollbooks used to check in voters. The issue halted voting for a while at State Farm Arena, where the NBA's Atlanta Hawks play. Technicians resolved the problem, and the lines soon cleared at the arena, which is Georgia's largest early voting site, with 300 voting machines.
Problems with the electronic pollbooks -- along with high turnout, the consolidation of polling places and shortages of poll workers -- bedeviled Georgia's primary in June.
MINNESOTA RULING
A federal judge has upheld a Minnesota state court agreement that allows the counting of absentee ballots received up to seven days after Election Day.
Republicans had asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel to block the extension.
Brasel ruled late Sunday that the plaintiffs in the case -- state Rep. Eric Lucero and another Republican who serves as an elector in the presidential election -- don't have standing and denied their motion for a preliminary injunction. She said giving voters conflicting information after absentee ballots have gone out would create confusion.
"This is a difficult genie to put back in the lamp," Brasel ruled.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed a notice saying they will appeal.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, called it "an important common-sense voting rights victory."
"Thousands of older Minnesota voters can protect their health and cast a ballot that will be counted. As in any election, the rights of voters to cast their ballots in the least burdensome manner is paramount. This decision furthers that ability," Fiesta said.
CALIFORNIA DROP BOXES
California's Republican Party on Monday acknowledged owning unofficial ballot drop boxes that state election officials said are illegal.
After receiving reports about the drop boxes in three counties, California's secretary of state issued a memo Sunday telling county registrars that ballots must be mailed or brought to official voting locations.
"In short, providing unauthorized, non-official vote-by-mail ballot drop boxes is prohibited by state law," the memo said.
On Monday, state GOP spokesman Hector Barajas said the party owns the boxes and has no plans to remove them. He would not say how many exist or where they are located.
Barajas said the state's law governing so-called ballot harvesting allows an organization to collect and return groups of ballots and that collection boxes provided by a private organization to help people vote are no different.
Information for this article was contributed by Kate Brumback, Sudhin Thanawala, Brynn Anderson, Ben Nadler, Ron Harris, Russ Bynum, Amy Forliti and Amy Taxin of The Associated Press.
