-
White County Elections Supervisor Jody Davis (left) and Chief Registrar Carol Smith review paperwork as early voting got underway this week.
Early voting began in White County Monday.
Turnout has been running ahead of 2020 so far.
As of Tuesday morning, 425 voters had cast ballots at the White County Board of Registar's office in Cleveland.
And absentee ballots are being requested at an above-normal rate, said Election Supervisor Jody Davis.
“People want to have their voices heard on issues like abortion and student loans, no matter which side of the issues they are on,” Davis said Tuesday.
Add in local races for county commissioner and state representative, as well as statewide contests for governor and the U.S. Senate, and local voters have plenty of motivation to go to the polls this year.
“Everybody is anxious to have their vote count,” Davis said. “We’re providing a way for people to voice their vote.”
Davis said requests for absentee ballots are also running above normal.
Statewide, the majority of precincts across Georgia are reporting higher-than-normal early voting turnouts.
More than 131,000 Georgians turned out on Monday for the first day of early voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reported Tuesday.
That’s 85% higher than the number who showed up to vote on the first day of early voting before the last midterm elections four years ago and fell just short of the 136,739 who cast ballots as early voting kicked off ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
The huge turnout wasn’t surprising considering Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock are on the ballot, along with Georgia’s congressional delegation. All 236 seats in the General Assembly also are being contested.
Democrats in particular have been urging their supporters to take advantage of early voting in light of changes to state election laws the Republican-controlled legislature passed this year that put new restrictions on voting by absentee ballot in the name of restoring voting integrity.
Statewide, reports of long lines Monday were minimal, although there were some reports of voters waiting in line for more than 30 minutes at a few popular voting locations in metro areas, Raffensperger said.
There will be at least 17 days of early voting throughout the state. All 159 counties will have an early voting Saturday this weekend.
The final day of early voting will be Nov 4, the last Friday before Election Day Nov. 8.
If you would like to vote with an absentee ballot, you can request it now through Friday, Oct. 28 in one of three ways. Call the White County Board of Registrars office at 706-865-7812, or go to the office at 121 Helen Highway, Suite 210-A, Cleveland. You can also go to the Secretary of State’s My Voter Page at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov.
You will need to provide your driver’s license number or state ID number.
For people who don’t have a driver’s license, the voter registration office issues free voter ID cards.
To request it online, use the above URL and enter your name, birthday and county. The My Voter Page will open from which you can look at your voting location, verify that you’re an active voter, check your local and congressional districts and request an Absentee Ballot. To do that you can either enter your information on line or download a form to fill out and deliver to the local election office.
You will need to enter an ID number, whether from your driver’s license or state ID, or passport, tribal ID, military or government ID.
By law in Georgia, you don’t have to have a reason to vote absentee. You will have to request that absentee ballot every election unless you are 65 or older, disabled, or a member of the military (or a spouse or dependent of one) or a U.S. citizen living overseas. If any of those apply, you can request that you get an absentee ballot for every election in that cycle, which is the primary, any runoffs and the general election, which are most often all held in a year. So for the 2024 Presidential election, you would need to do it again, but only once per cycle.
Ballots can be returned by mail, at a dropbox during early voting hours between Oct. 17 and Oct. 28, or in person during office hours at their county election office.
(Capitol Beat News service and reporter Linda Erbele contributed to this article)