Dougherty voting precincts to be combined for primary election

ALBANY — Twelve of Dougherty County’s voting precincts will be combined into six for Tuesday’s primary election as county Elections officials deal with the impact of COVID-19.

A shortage of poll workers is behind the need for the move, according to Dougherty County Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson.

“These people are on the front line,” she said. “A lot of our poll workers are in this critical age group, and they opted not to work. We want to ensure there are enough people available at each precinct to serve our voters. This is the only way we can facilitate that.”

Poll workers will wear masks and gloves to protect themselves and others, and the state has provided styluses for use by voters. When voters enter a voting precinct, they will receive a stylus to sign a digital poll pad, be given a voter card and proceed to a touchscreen voting machine. Voters will use the same stylus to make selections on the ballot.

After the voter finishes, the stylus will be sanitized before being used by another voter.

“The goal is to ensure that voters are comfortable coming in and poll workers are comfortable,” Nickerson said. “They (workers) will be here all day.”

Voters also will be asked to practice social distancing while in line. Voters were cooperative with that measure during the early voting period, Nickerson said.

“We have signage provided by the state requesting voters keep a 6-foot distance,” she said.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Voters who have received absentee ballots can return them through 7 p.m. on Tuesday at a drop box in front of the downtown Government Building. The drop box is monitored by security cameras.

The Georgia Secretary of State sent applications for absentee ballots to the address or post office box of all voters, and the Democratic and Republican parties also sent applications to voters. Nearly 4,500 absentee ballots had been returned in Dougherty County through Friday.

In Lee County, more than 3,000 absentee ballots had been returned.

Due to the large number of absentee ballots received, voting supervisors were given permission to begin processing them early, and that will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Lee County Voting Supervisor Veronica Johnson said.

“Typically, we have 500 or 600,” she said of the number of absentee ballots received during a primary election.

Processing refers to feeding ballots through the equipment, and those ballots will not be tabulated until after polls close.

“In order to get election results on election night in a timely manner, this was great,” Johnson said. “We won’t know who’s ahead and who’s behind. If we had to wait until 7 o’clock to start opening envelopes, we’d be here until the next afternoon.

“We won’t have any totals until after 7 p.m. on election night.”

Like Nickerson, Johnson said she expects that social distancing will slow down lines by a small amount of time. Lee County voters can drop off completed absentee ballots at 100 Starkville Ave. N.

If a voter has received an unreturned absentee ballot and chooses to instead vote in person on election day, Johnson requests that they bring the absentee ballot with them to the poll so it can be canceled out.

The following precinct combinations will be made for Dougherty County.

♦ Voters who usually vote at Precinct 4, located at Greenbriar Church, will vote at 2600 Partridge Drive, Westover High School Gymnasium Precinct;

♦ Voters who vote at the ASU West campus, Precinct 7, will vote at 2600 Partridge Drive, Westover High School Gymnasium Precinct;

♦ Voters who vote at the Westover Community Church, Precinct 27, will vote at 2600 Partridge Drive, Westover High School Gymnasium Precinct;

♦ Voters who vote at Alice Coachman Elementary School, Precinct 11, will vote at 1905 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Mt. Zion Church Precinct;

♦ Voters who vote at Turner Elementary School, Precinct 16, will vote at 2410 Sylvester Road, Phoebe East Precinct;

♦ Voters who vote at the Lovett Hall, Precinct 28, will vote at 302 Vick St., the Bill Miller Center Precinct.

File Photo

File Photo