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Hey, Georgia. Not for nothing, but your apparent governor-elect appears to be a cheap crook. From the Journal-Constitution:

Metro Atlanta voters stood in long lines Tuesday, amid a surge in turnout that made the midterm election resemble a presidential contest.



As they waited—some for hours—hundreds of voting machines sat unused, locked up in government warehouses, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.



The machines were sequestered by local officials because of an ongoing federal lawsuit that argues Georgia’s electronic voting machines could be hacked or tampered with.



With fewer machines in precincts, voters faced heavy delays, often more than an hour, before they got to the front of the line. The issue affected voters in Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties, the three jurisdictions covered by the court case.



Election officials said Wednesday that the lack of voting machines — combined with high turnout and wordy constitutional amendments — created some of the longest lines in years. They said that by the time they realized turnout would significantly exceed the last midterm election, there wasn’t time to find additional machines...



There were about 1,050 voting machines in Cobb precincts Tuesday while about 550 were sequestered. The county could have deployed a total of about 1,400 voting machines if they had been available, Eveler said. Another 700 direct-recording electronic voting machines were out of service in Fulton, along with 585 in DeKalb.

People lined up to vote in Georgia, where voter turnout resembled that of a presidential election. The Washington Post Getty Images

This is just beautiful. The "federal lawsuit" referenced above has to do with how easily Georgia's voting machines could be rigged, and the presiding judge, while denying a request to mandate paper ballots statewide, spent most of her decision excoriating the "Georgia election officials"—coughBrianKempcough—for being at best hopelessly negligent. Also from the AJC:

Totenberg scolded state election officials who “had buried their heads in the sand” by failing to safeguard Georgia’s voting system. She allowed the state to continue using electronic voting machines because a rushed transition to paper ballots could frustrate voters with “bureaucratic confusion and long lines.”



Her decision ensures that Georgia’s 27,000 touchscreen machines will remain in place for the election for governor between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is responsible for overseeing elections. In-person early voting starts Oct. 15, and Election Day is Nov. 6.



“The state defendants have also stood by for far too long, given the mounting tide of evidence of the inadequacy and security risks of Georgia’s DRE voting system and software,” Totenberg wrote in her 46-page order. “The court is gravely concerned about the state’s pace in responding to the serious vulnerabilities of its voting system.”

So Kemp and his cronies showed her. They locked up the voting machines from important Democratic counties so that the voters there could watch their fingernails grow while waiting in line.

All three counties impacted by the shortage favored Democrat Stacey Abrams over Republican Brian Kemp, who is the state’s top election official.

No kidding.

This, from Florida, in The Washington Post, is the whole point of the Georgia kabuki.

Even before the polls closed Tuesday, there were small signs that Gillum was not reaching everyone. Maxwell knocked on the door of his next-door neighbor. He had been badgering the 18-year-old high school dropout to ride with him to the polls. The young man told Maxwell he did not have a state ID and had no intention of getting one. “Voting doesn’t change anything,” he told Maxwell. “I don’t know how to get through to him,” Maxwell said afterward.

I don't know, either.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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