Brad Raffensperger is rattling off statistics while we wait. It's just after 4:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 21, and the Georgia secretary of state is standing outside a small conference room in an underground bunker on the east side of Atlanta, where he and his staff gather on election days. A couple dozen workers are spread around an open seating area, quietly fielding phone calls and staring at their computer monitors. With its fluorescent lights and gray carpet, the place has the muted feel of a regional sales office. The secretary, though, is energized. As the official in charge of overseeing elections in his state, Raffensperger is always ready to dive into the details.
Today is a statewide primary, and more than 700,000 of his fellow citizens will show up to cast a ballot at Georgia's roughly 2,300 polling sites, on top of the nearly 600,000 who voted early in person or by absentee ballot. For this election alone, says Raffensperger, the state had to produce about 9,000 different ballot styles to cover every local race and precinct. On one wall of the command center, big screens show real-time updates, metrics like voter turnout and voter wait time, which is averaging less than a minute-a point of pride for the 69-year-old Raffensperger. A successful structural engineer before entering politics, he's all about optimizing systems.
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