This story was updated at 9:05 p.m.

Maryland’s primary election on Tuesday had a lot of firsts for voters.

For some, there was the first time filling out a mail-in ballot. For others, it was the first time driving a ballot to a drop-off box. And for everyone, it was the first time voting in the middle of a pandemic.

For Lola Soyinka of Bowie, it was her first time voting as an American citizen. She said she was so happy to be able to vote, even if she couldn’t physically walk into a voting booth.

“I don’t know how I can say it or how I can break it down, but I’m just excited to be an American citizen and voting for the first time,” Soyinka said. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Like many voters on Tuesday morning, Soyinka dropped off her ballot at the Prince George’s County Board of Elections’ dropbox in Largo.

“This is not regular, but this is even better,” Soyinka said. “And I don’t see why people wouldn’t come out and vote.”

At 7:40 a.m., the county board parking lot had a steady line of voters patiently waiting in their cars to drop their ballots into the secure box. Many voters, like Brooks Garrett from Bowie, said they preferred to drop off their ballots than send them in the mail.

“I feel like it’s more secure if I drop it off instead of mailing it,” Garrett said.

Over at the College Park Community Center, an in-person voting site, poll workers sat behind plexiglass with masks on to register voters and give them their ballots. Markings on the floor reminded people to keep 6 feet of distance between each other. Once a voter would finish at a voting booth, a worker would come by and clean it. Other voting sites, like the Silver Spring Civics Center, had poll workers greeting voters at the door with hand sanitizer and a free pen to fill out their ballot and then take home.

Victor Robbins is the civic center’s manager and has been helping with elections since 2004. He spoke to DCist/WAMU wearing a mask, face shield, and gloves.

“We have a limit on the number of capacity in the room. In our case, that’s 73 [people]. All of the workers have gloves and masks, other workers circulating have to wear a face shield,” Robbins said. “We’ve done all that we could to protect ourselves and protect the voters.”

Robbins said the center has had a lot of their personal protective equipment provided to them by Montgomery County.

Many voters at the community center like Kimberly Morgan-Craft, a resident of Laurel, said she preferred the traditional way of voting in-person. Morgan-Craft said she felt safe voting in-person and she would prefer to vote in-person in November as well.

“I mean if I have to wear a hazmat suit to get it done in-person I will,” Morgan-Craft said. “I think the stakes are too high in November not to make sure my vote isn’t counted on that day.”

Outside the community center, State Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties) stood with campaign canvassers in a packed parking lot and said he’s seen a steady stream of voters.

“I think it’s two things: the overall political environment, but also, frankly, all the protests and the tragedies in the past week has focused peoples’ minds on we got to come together and we got to vote,” Rosapepe said.

Elijah Johnson, a recent college graduate and resident of Silver Spring, said he felt like there was a lot of tension in the room and not just because of the pandemic.

“When I see another African American person there’s something there. It’s like I see you, I feel your pain,” Johnson said referring to the protests that have gripped the country over the past five days over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Johnson came out for this first time to vote in-person because his ballot got sent to his mom’s address, but typically he votes via mail-in ballot.

“In the future, I think it should be a bit of both; half and half,” he said.

Some voters had to go to vote in person because they didn’t get their ballots mailed to them. Del. Mary Lehman (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties) said around a dozen of her constituents, mostly in Prince George’s County, told her they didn’t receive their ballots in the mail.

That was the case for Silver Spring resident Susan Walsh. Walsh is disabled and has impaired hearing and vision.

“Access has been hard,” she said. “It almost meant that I didn’t vote.”

Walsh said she was on the phone for four hours trying to call the Montgomery County Board of Elections to figure out how she could vote without a mail-in ballot. She says issues with accessibility for disabled voters has been compounded by the pandemic.

“I understand how complex this is,” Walsh said. “I think it’s a lot of work that everyone is doing to make this happen. It’s so important to be able to vote.”

She said she realizes there are some kinks to be worked out in the mail-in process and she’s hoping to be able to mail in her ballot in November.