After 12 days of early voting, including the only two Saturdays for voting, Bulloch County's turnout in the current partisan general primary and nonpartisan general election topped 4%.

In-person advanced voting continues 8 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday this week but will end with the last voter in line in the Elections Office area at the County Annex as of 5 p.m. Friday, May 15. Then all 16 traditional, Election Day voting precincts in Bulloch County will open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 19, for their assigned voters who haven't voted early or absentee.

A cumulative total of 2,204 Bulloch voters had participated as of 5 p.m. Saturday, May 9, according to a county report. That included 2,071 Bulloch residents who had voted early in-person during 10 weekdays and two Saturdays, another 131 who had voted paper absentee ballots and two military or overseas U.S. citizens who voted by electronic ballot delivery.

So this was just over 4% of Bulloch's 54,817 registered voters, a baseline that includes recently inactive, but still-registered voters.

Friday, May 8, was the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot, so that deadline has now passed. However, once voters receive an absentee ballot, they have until Election Day to mark and return it. Absentee ballots received in the elections office by the close of polls, 7 p.m. on May 19, can be counted. But apparently fewer than 150 issued absentee paper ballots remained at-large, since only 283 were issued in the first place and four had been cancelled by voters who may be voting in-person instead.

For the four remaining days of in-person early voting, the Board of Elections and Registration Office, in the County Annex at 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro, remains the only site in the county.

Registered Georgia voters can go online to the state My Voter Page, https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/, and enter their first initial, last name, county and date of birth to view a sample ballot individualized to their particular set of districts. The My Voter Page also provides a way to find your Election Day poll location.

Statewide and Monday update

Statewide, the combined early in-person and absentee turnout rate had reached 7.3% of active, registered voters by Monday evening, with 533,728 of the state's 7,357,381 active voters participating, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's Office online election data hub.

The state hub showed Bulloch County's turnout so far at 4.9% as of Monday evening, with 2,486 voters having participated out of the county's smaller "active" voter count of 50,685.