MACON, Ga. — Inside the Bibb County Board of Elections, workers sorted through more than 18,000 absentee ballots this week.
Board of elections chairman Mike Kaplan says normally the county sees about 3,000 absentee voters in an election.
Kaplan estimates about 15,000 people voted by mail for the first time in in Macon-Bibb for this primary, and about 10,000 of them didn't read the directions at the top of the page.
The absentee ballots instructs voter to fully fill in the oval next to the candidate of your choice. Kaplan says thousands of people circled a candidate's name, used an "X," or a check mark to select their choice.
Elections workers are fixing the errors by hand and entering the choices into Georgia's new voting system to ensure that all the votes count.
Kaplan hopes voters will learn how to mark the ballots properly before a potential runoff in August and the November election.
"Hopefully, this is a learning process, because it's been a learning process for us as well here at the Board of Elections. We hope it's a learning process for the public to help us save some time by staying in the lines," says Kaplan.
The state has given all counties until Friday to count their absentees.
Election officials say the influx of absentee voters was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This way, people avoided large crowds and long lines at the polls.
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