Election 2016: ‘Express Poll’ slows down voting at one Dougherty County precinct

ALBANY — As voters rolled out of bed and headed for the polls at 7 a.m. today, it didn’t take long for Dougherty County to run up against its first snafu of the Election Day.

At Christ United Methodist Church on Byron Plantation Road, lines began to back up when one of the precinct’s Express Poll devices failed to operate. The devices are not voting machines, but “charge” the familiar yellow voting cards with voter information. An uncharged card will not function in a voting machine.

“We had a fairly long line of people and most people understood when we explained the problem to them,” precinct manager Clint Melton said. “The crowd lightened up after 9, and it’s been fairly smooth since then, even though we are still slowed down.”

Dougherty County Election Board Chair Walter Blankenship said having just one working Express Poll device was an inconvenience, but he wasn’t overly concerned yet.

“In the real world, computers go down all the time,” he said. “If it were a voting machine, we could just swap it out. But we have a limited number of the Express Poll devices and when only one is working it slows everybody down.

“We are working to resolve the problem.”

For the most part, after 9 a.m. the crowd barely noticed the slowdown.

“I didn’t notice any difference at all. No slowdown for me,” voter Terry Carrington said.

Polls will be open at all precincts until 7 p.m.