By Rhonda Cook | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

State and local election officials are encouraging voters to cast absentee ballots early —- or by mail —- in hopes of managing what could be record crowds at the polls on Nov. 4.

Some county elections officials have predicted that turnout could top 90 percent. In August alone, more than 99,000 people registered to vote in Georgia, and registrars expect many more to sign up before the Oct. 6 deadline.

“We’re going to have a whole bunch of people register to vote, and they need to take advantage of absentee voting,” said Linda Latimore, head of elections in DeKalb County.

If they don’t?

“They’ll be in line from Nov. 4 to Dec. 25,” Latimore said.

As local registrars prepare for absentee voters, a new report by a government watchdog group suggests Georgia may not be able to handle the large crowds expected in November.

In a report released Tuesday, the group, Common Cause, said Georgia was among the least-prepared states it studied. The group warned of long lines, confusion —- and the possibility that some voters will be denied ballots.

“The voting process is going to be tested like it has never been before in its history,” said Tova Wang, who wrote the report and is Common Cause’s vice president for research.

Common Cause is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s voter ID law. That lawsuit is still pending.

Karen Handel, Georgia’s secretary of state, “disagrees with a number of the conclusions [in the report], which appear to be based purely on subjective criteria that Common Causes supports,” said a spokesman, Matt Carrothers.

Handel’s office would limit its reaction to the report until it has finished reviewing it, Carrothers said.

In reaching the findings, Common Cause and the Century Foundation —- a New York organization that conducts public policy research —- studied voter registration and identification, provisional ballots, voting machine allocation and poll worker recruitment and training in 10 “swing states.”

Those states were Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Researchers described Florida and Virginia as among the “most problematic” of the states studied.

“The excitement of this presidential campaign is expected to generate record-breaking turnout,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “The bad news … is the voting infrastructure may not be equipped to handle that kind of pressure.”

State officials, though, downplayed Common Cause’s findings.

Drafts of the report were sent to each state several months ago for their comments and suggestions, Common Cause said.

Voters who wish to vote absentee by mail must mail or fax their application to their county board of registrar’s office.

In the meantime, metro counties are busily preparing for the expected crowds.

DeKalb County, for instance, is training more than 3,000 poll workers.

“All of us are nervous,” said Lynne Ledford, who runs Gwinnett’s elections office. “We do everything we can to make sure people do vote.”

To help, voters for the first time this year will be able to cast “absentee” ballots in person, without providing a reason. In some counties, such as Cobb and Gwinnett, voters can begin casting those absentee ballots Friday.

Elsewhere in the state, voters can begin on Monday —- 45 days before Election Day.

Fulton has three locations while Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties are allowing advance voting at their main offices. (For a full list of locations, please see the list on A1.)

To prevent problems on Election Day, Common Cause recommended that:

> Precincts be supplied with far more provisional ballots than usual and poll workers be given more training. Many of the potential problems in the report involved paper provisional ballots, which are counted only if the voter resolves within 48 hours any problems with registration or failing to have picture ID issues.

“We have a hard enough time getting voters to show up at the polls once,” said Common Cause’s Wang. “It’s just more hoops and hurdles to have them come back.”

> More electronic voting machines should be set up at each precinct. Though Georgia law requires one machine for every 250 voters assigned to each polling place, the report predicted that standard may be inadequate for this general election if the expected flood of voters turns out.

> More recruitment and training of poll workers. “Attracting a sufficient number of poll workers continues to be one of the biggest problems confronting our system, ” the report says.

Full story link to AJC here.