Friday is final day of early voting in Georgia

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Friday is the final day for Georgia voters to cast a ballot early for the primary election next week.

Our area has seen record numbers in early voting totals so far. They have been breaking records and seen really strong numbers throughout the entire early voting process and they expect that to continue Friday.

More than 1,400 people have cast their ballot in person early at the five different locations throughout Chatham County,

If they continue on that pace to finish the week, they could end with nearly 16,000 votes, which would be triple the amount we saw in the 2018 primary election.

Chatham County Board of Registrars Chairman, Colin McRae, says he believes voting legislation passed in Georgia is actually spurring more people in the Peach State to vote early.

“Thankfully with this increased turnout we have seen relatively few speed bumps in the process, there was an early speed bump with the coding of a few voters for early voting for a state house seat, 2 state house races that had a little error there that was quickly corrected,” McRae said.

More than 500,000 voters have voted in person in Georgia, which is nearly three times the turnout for the 2018 primary election.

While there are a number of state races that will be narrowed down for the general election, on this ballot there are some local non partisan races that will be decided - another factor that could have brought out more early voters

“So that could lead to fewer votes in person on election day or it might indicate that there is an overall higher interest in the election process and we might see even more on election day than we saw in 2018 even with all of the early and absentee ballots that have been cast,” McRae said.

The county has mailed out more than 3,000 absentee ballots and received about half of them back, remember those need to be returned by the time the polls close on Election Day.

If you plan to drop it off in the drop box, Friday is the last day those will be open at the early voting sites.

If you plan to vote on Election Day on Tuesday and recently received a precinct card in the mail, that is just informational since some of the precincts have changes to let you know which district you are in and where to vote, you do not need to bring that card with you on Election Day.

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