ATLANTA – Fulton County elections staff is working overtime to clear a backlog of thousands of unprocessed voter registration forms.
New elections chief Rick Barron discovered last month that about 14,000 applications hadn’t been entered into the state’s data system, he told The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Being entered into that system allows voters to use touch-screen voting machines when they show up at polls.
That’s the same kind of problem that led to a chain of failures during last year’s presidential election.
Barron’s staff had processed all but 3,500 applications and expects to have the remainder done by Monday, he said.
Barron also fired one of his top administrators, Sharon Mitchell, who served as interim department director during last year’s election. Barron declined to explain whether he fired her because of the backlog or for other reasons. Mitchell didn’t respond to messages the newspaper left on her cellphone.