LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Voters in Georgia waited in line for hours in the rain to cast their ballots Tuesday. Some waited up to five hours.
So Jefferson County election officials are doing all they can to make sure that is not the case June 23 during the primary.
“We have about 230,000 people who have requested ballots in Jefferson County out of the 611,000 voters,” said Nore Ghibaudy with Jefferson County Board of Elections. “We’re working 24 hours days with staff working two 12-hour shifts to try and fulfill those ballots.”
That number of registered voters is the highest the county has had in the last 40 years, even with the country being in a pandemic. Election officials have only had three weeks to combine 245 polling locations into one.
On Wednesday afternoon, more than two dozen people inside the Jefferson County Election Center were matching signatures, checking addresses and filling envelops to return to absentee voters in time for the primary.
If you’d rather vote in person, the Kentucky Exposition Center is your only option. Since the election was pushed back, a large enough facility was chosen that could accommodate social distancing.
“We had to look for a location that would be accessible and meet the ADA requirements that had free parking and a lot of parking,” Ghibaudy said.
But the Expo Center may be difficult for some to get to, especially the elderly or those without a car.
“I’ve talked to strangers in the Walmart line, overhearing conversations thinking they can casually vote at their library or school, but that is not happening,” said Shauntionne Mosely — a former Georgia resident — who lives in Louisville’s Chickasaw neighborhood. “They choose the Expo Center because it’s centrally located in Louisville. But it is only located to west end residents if they have a car.”
To aid in that, TARC is offering free rides every 30 minutes from Union Station on West Broadway to the Expo Center.
At the Expo Center, poll workers will be sanitizing all the stations and requiring those in line to social distance as they wait for their turn.
More details on the in-person voting process will be released Friday afternoon.
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