Advanced in person voting for the presidential and general election began on Monday statewide in Georgia. Voters began arriving at 6:30 am in Bulloch County and by 8 am, when the polls opened at the Bulloch County Annex, there were 100 people in line.
The lines continued throughout the day and the poll workers had to stay after 5 pm to accommodate voters in line. When you include absentee ballots that have been returned, 3,105 Bulloch County voters had voted by the end of the day Monday. There are 46,088 registered voters in Bulloch.
It was taking on average about an hour in line to vote on Monday
Records Broken Statewide
At the end of the first day of advanced voting, 574 voters had voted in person in Bulloch County which broke records.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, 126,876 Georgians voted in person on Monday. The previous record was about 90,000 voters. 601,247 people have voted total by the end of the day Monday.
At this point in the 2016 general election, that number was 156,017. Total turnout for the 2020 general election is 285% higher at this point than in 2016.
Heavy Crowds Continue on Day Two of Voting
Tuesday was a repeat of Monday seeing Bulloch voters along with voters statewide lining up before 7 am to vote. Bulloch County saw seven less voters than on Monday, ending the day with 567 voting on Tuesday or 1,141 voting in person at the Bulloch County annex.
Four Voting Machines
Due to COVID guidelines, the elections team are only able to set up four voting machines. When the building was designed, they never imagined a scenario like COVID has presented. Pat Jones, Bulloch County Election Supervisor explained that with the design of the building there is not a lot of options to increase machine capacity.
Athens began the day Monday also with four voting machines, but as crowds build they added more machines totaling. At one point over 200 people waited in line in Athens and it was taking them over two hours to vote. They voted 547 total in Athens on Monday, compared with 574 who voted in Bulloch on four total machines.
Tuesday, Athens created an overflow area in another room in the building and added even more machines. They now have ten machines operating and were expecting to see even more voters with the expanded capacity.
Next week for three days, there will be a second location in the Russell Union on the Georgia Southern Campus. The week of October 26 through October 30th Lanier has planed to open a second voting location at the Honey Bowen Building at Fair Road Park.
There will also be one Saturday voting option on October 24th at the Bulloch County Annex.
Bulloch County Voter Guide
Click here to review all voting options in the Grice Connect Bulloch County Voter guide.
