A busy week of early voting saw record numbers of area voters cast ballots ahead of the Tuesday, Dec. 6 runoffs for U.S. Senate and a district-level school board seat.
An 80% chance of morning rain may dampen turnout today, when voters must use their assigned polling places. Travis Doss, elections director for Richmond County, said he expects a final turnout here between 40% and 50% for the runoffs.
“I’m not expecting us to match what we did in November, 52%,” Doss said. His office phone didn’t ring as much Monday with the usual voter questions, he said.
View a list of Columbia County polling places
View a list of Richmond County polling places
As Georgia set records for early voting, Richmond County voters packed nearly as many early votes during last week’s six-day voting period as they did during three weeks of early voting in the January 2021 runoffs, Doss said.
“For one week of advance voting to do that volume is impressive,” he said.
All told, some 25.8% of Richmond County voters already have cast ballots in the runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. That includes 29,616 who voted in person at one of four sites over the six days and approximately 2,820 who voted by mail.
MORE: Richmond County voters set record, near-record in Senate runoff
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Richmond County voters favored Warnock with 69.6% in the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff that made Warnock the incumbent now facing Walker. On Nov. 8, Warnock enjoyed 68.1% support in the heavily Democratic county.
In Republican-leaning Columbia County, approximately 21.3% of registered voters or 22,462 cast ballots early at one of two sites or by mail. The county favored Walker with 62.4% Nov. 8 and on Jan. 5, 2021, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler with 63.2% over Warnock.
Heading into today’s runoff between incumbent Charlie Hannah and the Rev. Larry Fryer for District 2 on the Richmond County Board of Education, turnout so far stands at 19.98%.
