The blue county of Fulton in Georgia slowed their vote count totals on Election Day after a pipe reportedly burst in their facility.
“A broken water pipe at the ballot processing site at State Farm arena caused a delay in Fulton County’s ability to process thousands of absentee-by-mail votes Tuesday night,” reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Politico reported that Fulton County “may not be able to fully report results until Friday, elections board member Mark Wingate told the newspaper.”
Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts told AJC that the pipe burst at 6:07 a.m., but was repaired within two hours. According to AJC, the county says no ballots were damaged by the incident.
The county “planned to stop scanning absentee ballots at 10:30 p.m. and pick it up back in the morning,” noted AJC. “No official could explain before press time why Fulton was stopping its count of absentee ballots at that time, only saying that was the procedure.”
“BREAKING- Fulton County Georgia expecting to begin counting absentee ballots at 8:30aET after stopping for the night at 10:30pET,” reported CNN correspondent Nick Valencia. “An estimated 48,000 are still outstanding. Another 79,000 still not counted in DeKalb. They start counting at 11am #ElectionNight2020 #georgia.”
BREAKING- Fulton County Georgia expecting to begin counting absentee ballots at 8:30aET after stopping for the night at 10:30pET. An estimated 48,000 are still outstanding. Another 79,000 still not counted in DeKalb. They start counting at 11am #ElectionNight2020 #georgia
— Nick Valencia (@CNNValencia) November 4, 2020
“As planned, Fulton County will continue to tabulate the remainder of absentee ballots over the next two days,” said a Fulton County spokesperson. “Absentee ballot processing requires that each ballot is opened, signatures verified, and ballots scanned. This is a labor-intensive process that takes longer to tabulate than other forms of voting. Fulton County did not anticipate having all absentee ballots processed on Election Day.”
According to the Associated Press, as of Wednesday morning at 9:46 a.m., President Donald Trump leads Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by 102,212 votes, FOX 5 noted.
Screenshot: AP Election Results via FOX 5
Back in 2016, Trump handily won the state of Georgia.