Water pipe burst in Georgia county caused absentee ballot processing delay

Fulton County Georgia's absentee ballot processing faced a delay due to a water pipe that burst on Tuesday morning. 

No ballots or equipment incurred any damage during the incident, according to a statement from Fulton County. 

"At approximately 6:07 a.m., the staff at State Farm Arena notified Fulton County Registration & Elections of a water leak affecting the room where absentee ballots were being tabulated," the statement said. "The State Farm Arena team acted swiftly to remediate the issue. Within 2 hours, repairs were complete. No ballots were damaged, nor was any equipment affected. There was a brief delay in tabulating absentee ballots while the repairs were being conducted."

"Tonight Fulton County will report results for approximately 86,000 absentee ballots, as well as Election Day and Early Voting results. These represent the vast majority of ballots cast within Fulton County," the statement said. 

"As planned, Fulton County will continue to tabulate the remainder of absentee ballots over the next two days. Absentee ballot processing requires that each ballots [sic] 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," the statement said.

Absentee ballots have been expected to play a significant role in the 2020 general election as the nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus public health crisis.