Early Voting Available Only Five Days In Runoff For Oconee County Commission Post II

Early voting starts on Nov. 28, the Monday after Thanksgiving, for the Dec. 6 runoff election for Post II on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.

Early voting will run only Monday through Friday of that week and will be held at the Board of Elections and Registration Office, 10 Court Street, across from the Oconee County Courthouse in Watkinsville.

Only voters registered prior to the Nov. 8 election can cast a ballot, but registered voters who did not vote on Nov. 8 are eligible to vote on Dec. 6.

Only 4,253 voters participated in the runoff in July of 2014, the last time Oconee County had a runoff in a Commission race. That was in a primary.

The 4,253 contrasts with the 17,763 who cast a ballot for the three candidates in the Nov. 8 special election, when Chuck Horton got 45.2 percent of the vote, Marcus Wiedower got 30.2 percent, and Ben Bridges got 24.0 percent.

Horton and Wiedower will meet in the runoff on Dec. 6.

As of Friday, Dan Matthews was ahead of Mark Melvin by one vote in the Watkinsville City Council Post 5 election, and Board of Elections and Registration Chair Pat Hayes said the maximum number of additional votes that could be counted and certified in the race by the end of the day on Monday would be three.

For more on this story, including an analysis of votes in the BOC race by precinct, please go toOconee County Observations.