Atlanta’s northern suburbs are likely to decide who wins Georgia
“Like Green, many were White, but the group also included a large number of Asian Americans, Indian Americans and Black people, all dancing in unison. The crowd was reflective of the rapidly diversifying population of Forsyth and other North Atlanta suburbs in recent years that has made the region a fiercely contested political battleground in Georgia. Whoever wins or makes significant voting gains in the counties of Forsyth, Cobb and Gwinnett is likely to win Georgia, a pivotal battleground state thatcould determine the race for the presidency.
“This is not your daddy’s Forsyth County!” a woman declared, as the Democrats danced and cheered.
The shift in these northern suburbs helps explain why Georgia, which for more than two decades was a reliable win for Republican presidential candidates, has now become a key swing state.”
Fulton County, Georgia, Braces For A Massive Election
“Additional police will be present at the election headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, this year — “just because of what’s going on,” LaShandra Little, voter education and outreach manager for the county, said euphemistically during a facility tour Monday.
Just hours before Election Day, there’s a lot going on in Fulton County. Fulton is Georgia’s most populous county — and a Democratic stronghold that could provide the blue votes necessary to put Vice President Kamala Harris over the top, both in the state and, potentially, overall.
This is also the county’s first year using a mammoth new “Election Hub” facility. It takes up 400,000 square feet of a 1-million-square-foot warehouse in Union City, just outside Atlanta. And on Election Day eve, it was buzzing with anticipation.
The Election Hub facility is imposing, looking from the outside like an Amazon warehouse. Inside, election machines are lined up in lengthy rows and election workers operate in neon vests and “VOTE” T-shirts. Throughout the building, they are organizing voter registration application forms, wheeling tabulator machines into place, and systematically opening the envelopes carrying absentee ballots — a step called “pre-processing” that, at least in some states, allows the counting to proceed much more quickly Tuesday. Near a section reserved for election observers, a studio-apartment-sized room is walled in glass on all four sides. Inside sit the computers that will tally the county’s results.
Ahead of a press briefing Monday morning, Little gave a tour of the facility to dozens of members of the media who spoke a half a dozen languages among them. Across Fulton County, there will be about 2,000 election workers making the democratic process run on Tuesday, Little said. Of that, about 10% will be working out of the Election Hub.”