Lauderdale Co. election officials are prepared in case long lines form at the polls on election day

Early voting is taking place in many states across the county, with reports of many waiting in line for hours before being able to cast their vote. With election day soon approaching, we spoke with Lauderdale County election officials to see if they anticipate long lines at the polls on election day, and how they plan to manage them.

Lauderdale County Election Commissioners have stated that they are prepared to deal the possible long lines on election day.

With many Lauderdale County residents already participating in absentee voting, the county election commissioners shared that they do not expect to see long lines and hour-long waits at the polls on election day, but they are ready to manage them, if necessary.

“We normally don’t have lines like that, and so –but we’re prepared to handle that. We will have plenty of poll workers hired to take care, --to make sure the social distancing and the hand sanitizing and all that going on. But anybody that in line, even if its out the door, when it turns 7’o clock anybody that’s in line, that line will get to vote,” said Awana Simmons, Lauderdale County Election Commissioners Chairperson, District 3 Election Commissioner.

To reduce the chance of technical difficulties occurring on election day, the county’s election equipment is now officially undergoing Logic and Accuracy Testing.

“We’re setting and testing the machines to make sure that everything, that they’re operating right, printing out correctly and they won’t leave here until they’re ready to go. Everything, they’ll be locked and sealed and go out to the polls and our poll workers are prepared, if they have a problem, they call –we have a number we call the troubleshooters. They call the office and we’re ready to –we have several technicians and all that are working with us, that soon as they have a problem, we’re out there with them,” said Simmons.

Lauderdale County will continue its Logic and Accuracy Testing, on all of the counties election equipment on Tuesday, October 20, to ensure that all equipment is prepared for the election day on November 3.