Day and night, under historic scrutiny, the nation's vote counters carried on
Source: Washington Post
‘We will not allow anyone to stop us’: Day and night, under historic scrutiny, the nation’s vote counters carried on
By Amy Gardner, Reis Thebault, Hannah Knowles and Michelle Ye Hee Lee
11/8/2020, 4:14:29 p.m.
A burst pipe in the ceiling of Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, where Fulton County election officials had set up their vote-counting command center this fall, was perhaps the easiest of the challenges the staff faced in this singular year.
Water splattering on the floor halted counting for two hours on Election Day, but it didn’t damage any ballots. And it was nothing compared to the seemingly Augean task of processing nearly 150,000 mail ballots, the unfounded accusations of fraud, the physical threats and the online harassment — and the distinctly racial overtones of mostly White protesters outside the building hurling unfounded accusations of wrongdoing as a largely Black staff of election officials inside methodically counted ballots.
In the background was an anxious nation hitting “refresh” on their devices for the latest vote tallies, desperate to know who the next president would be, their eyes trained on Georgia and a handful of other states like no election in history.
“I knew there was going to be more scrutiny here,” said Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron. “I’ve learned to expect it, and you just deal with the pressure as it comes.”
This year aimed a bright light on the way elections are run in this country — and put unfathomable demands on the people who run them. When the coronavirus pandemic exploded in March, it was instantly apparent that their already complicated task would become immensely more difficult: maintaining rosters of poll workers, providing protective equipment, preparing for a historic burst of mail voting and then counting all the ballots.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020-election-workers-count/2020/11/08/a6136514-2083-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html