ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's most populous county has agreed to implement certain measures to make elections run more smoothly as part of an agreement meant to resolve complaints about problems during the June primary election.

The state election board had referred concerns over Fulton County's handling of the primary election to the state attorney general's office. Those included a failure to process some absentee ballot applications, polling places opening late, inadequate training of poll workers and a failure to provide necessary Election Day supplies and forms to polling places.

The board voted unanimously Friday to approve a consent order to resolve those cases. The state election board orders Fulton County to pay a civil penalty of $50,000, but the board agrees to waive that penalty if the county fully implements measures outlined in the order for the general election Tuesday.

“We really want a spirit of cooperation. We want the issues resolved,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said before the vote to approve the consent order, adding that Fulton County has already made improvements.

An attorney for the county previously said county election officials acknowledged that there were problems during the primary, many of them caused in large part by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The consent order clarifies that it “is not to be construed as an admission of guilt or liability” on the county's part.

The consent order recognizes the challenges faced by Fulton County and the efforts made by the county's elections staff but says there were violations of the state election code.

“While neither the State Election Board nor the Secretary of State's office believes these violations were the result of malicious intent, the fact remains there were violations that resulted in voters not receiving an absentee ballot and there were violations that resulted in voters not being able to vote,” the consent order says.

According to the order, Fulton County agrees to have adequate resources to process absentee ballot applications and then process returned absentee ballots by the next business day after they're received, have at least 2,200 poll workers and a sufficient pool of trained alternates, have at least 24 early in-person voting locations, have at least 255 Election Day polling places, have a technical support staffer on hand in every polling location on Election Day and dedicate sufficient resources for a post-election audit.

Fulton County has already made many of the changes required by the order, including going beyond some of the requirements.

The consent order also says the state election board may appoint an independent monitor to oversee progress and compliance with the order. The board agreed to appoint Carter Jones, who has previous experience working on elections in other parts of the world, secretary of state's office general counsel Ryan Germany told the board.