ATLANTA (AP) — After a rocky primary election that spawned viral photos of voters waiting for hours to cast their ballots, Georgia election officials hoped steps taken since then would help things run more smoothly on Tuesday.

Polling places have been added across the state, new poll workers have been recruited and trained, and a record number of people voted early in person or by absentee ballot in the weeks leading up to Election Day. But the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, and voter enthusiasm is expected to drive high turnout.

Voters lined up outside polling places before they opened at 7 a.m., and voting appeared to be running well initially, with some exceptions.

At Morris Brandon Elementary School in Atlanta, a technical problem briefly forced voters to cast paper ballots instead of voting on machines. And an apparent database error affected all the polling sites in Spalding County about 40 miles south of Atlanta, where voters encountered delays after electronic ballots wouldn't load on touchscreen voting machines. Poll workers switched to a manual process, and the machines were being used again by mid-morning, according to Gabe Sterling with the Secretary of State’s Office.

Voting in the suburb of Powder Springs northwest of Atlanta, Trump voter Susan Spence said she feels “terrified in a world with Biden, absolutely terrified.”

“I’m here because I believe in Americanism, not socialism,” said Spence, a 69-year-old retired teacher.

But Cynthia McDonald, a 52-year-old consultant in Sandy Springs who voted early for Biden, compared Trump to a catastrophe.

“It’s kind of like a train wreck that you can’t look away from,” she said. “Then you realize you’re not watching the train wreck, you’re on the damn train!”

Georgia's turnout could reach as many as 5.5 million voters, up about 34% from 4.1 million in 2016, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state's top elections official.

“My goal, which we have been working toward since my election, is to provide a smooth, safe, responsible and sensible voting experience for each and every Georgia voter, regardless of ZIP code,” Raffensperger said Monday.

A record of nearly 2.7 million voters cast their ballots during the state’s three-week early in-person voting period. Another 1.2 million absentee ballots had been received and accepted by Monday morning.

Kelvin Hardnett stood in line in near-freezing weather for nearly an hour before polls opened at the Cobb County Civic Center outside Atlanta.

“I believe there’s a lot of division and separation,” said Hardnett, 36, who works for a security firm. “And I believe that once we get past the names and the titles and the personal agendas, then you know, we can focus on some real issues.”

A combination of factors contributed to long lines during the primary election in June, including equipment problems, coronavirus-related poll worker shortages and consolidation of polling places. Voters also queued for hours during early in-person voting last month, with some waiting more than eight hours to cast a ballot.

The primary was the first statewide election carried out on the new election system the state bought for more than $100 million last year from Dominion Voting Systems. The system includes touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots for voters to insert into scanners, which read a barcode to record and tally the votes.

The coronavirus outbreak complicated training on the new system and many experienced poll workers dropped out ahead of the primary, fearing exposure to the virus. Since then, thousands of new poll workers have been recruited and trained, and election officials organized an army of technicians, on hand to troubleshoot any equipment problems.

Raffensperger said his office reviewed wait times and check-in times for precincts across the state after the primary, along with the number of registered voters, turnout and equipment distribution. They then advised counties to add more voting equipment in some places or to split precincts. That has resulted in several hundred new polling places for the general election, he said.

Fulton County alone added 91 polling places, bringing the total from 164 for the primary to 255 for the general election, according to elections director Rick Barron.

“We’ve had minimal lines throughout the county," Barron told reporters on Tuesday. “It always helps when you have robust turnout during early voting to alleviate issues that can crop up on election day.”

Aklima Khondoker, Georgia state director for All Voting is Local, welcomes the addition of new polling places to mitigate long lines. But she said state and county election officials need to "make sure that voters have critical, up-to-date information, because voters will be discouraged and confused because they will not know where they need to be on Election Day.”

Despite all these measures, Raffensperger warned that lines may still be long given the expected high turnout. He urged patience.

“If you are voting on Tuesday, you will potentially experience lines," Raffensperger said last week. "This is the reality when millions of people try to do the same thing at once.”

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Associated Press writers Jeff Martin, Ben Nadler, Sophia Tulp and Christina Cassidy contributed reporting.

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Find AP’s full election coverage at APNews.com/Election2020.