Early Voting Turnout High But Absentee Balloting Not So

More Oconee County voters have turned out on each of the first three days of early voting for the Jan. 5 runoff than turned on the first three days of early voting for the Nov. 3 general election, and the total number of votes cast in early voting stands at 4,123, or 12.9 percent of the county’s registered voters.

The number of absentee ballots returned so far (2,153), however, is behind the number received after the first three days of early voting in October for the November election.

Early voting for the Jan. 5 runoff contains four fewer days than did early voting in October, so one-quarter of early voting for the Jan. 5 runoff is now completed, with a total of 6,276 ballots cast either in person or absentee.

By the end of four days of early voting in October–or a quarter of the 16 days–7,738 votes had been cast either in person or via absentee ballots.

That 7.738 represented 24.5 percent of the then 31,594 registered voters. The 6,276 votes cast as of the end of the day on Wednesday represented 19.6 percent of the now 31,985 voters registered for the Jan. 5 runoff.

Early voting continues from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday and during those same hours Dec. 21 to 23 and Dec. 28 to Dec. 31. Voting is at the Oconee County Civic Center, 2661 Hog Mountain Road, east of Butler’s Crossing.

For more on this story, pleases go to Oconee County Observations.