Georgia Primary Was a 'Hot Mess'

Joe Biden easily won the Georgia and West Virginia Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday, but, for Georgia, that's about where the word "easy" stopped applying. The word "chaos," however, was used in a number of headlines about the state's primary; the Hill and the AP describe lines taking as long as five hours, heat and rain, problems with voting machines, fewer poll workers due to coronavirus concerns, mail-in ballots failing to arrive and forcing voters to head to the polls when they hadn't planned to, and more. "It's a hot mess," the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia told the New York Times, noting that in at least one polling place, no voting machines ever arrived. There were also concerns of voting irregularities, including one report of a machine that failed to show the House election for that district.

"The chaos in Georgia is a direct result of the reduction in the number of in-person polling places and over reliance on mail-in voting," a Trump campaign rep said. "We have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all of our citizens to vote in person and to have their votes counted." On the other side, the Democratic National Committee Chairman said the problems didn't surprise him due to the fact that the state's elections chief is Republican. "Republicans want to ensure that it is as hard as possible for people to vote," he said. Either way, the AP notes the chaotic primary "raised the specter of a worst-case November scenario," in which a decisive state remains in dispute long after polls close. In addition to Georgia and West Virginia, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina held primaries Tuesday, but they had previously held their presidential primaries. The Washington Post has live results here. (More Election 2020 stories.)