With lines forming each morning before the doors open, 1,733 Bulloch County voters cast ballots in the first three days of early, in-person voting for the Nov. 3 general election, one-third more than turned out in the first three days of early voting four years ago.

Meanwhile, the number of mailed-out absentee ballots returned by Bulloch County voters through Wednesday, 2,902, already exceeds the total number returned in the 2016 presidential general election by almost 80%.

Added together, those two current voter counts, 1,733 and 2,902, indicate that 4,635 Bulloch County residents, or roughly 10% of the county’s registered voters, have already participated, with two and a half weeks remaining before Election Day.

In-person early voting is available at the elections office in the County Annex from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. weekdays. But voters began to line up outside as early as 6:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday, said Bulloch County Deputy Registrar Shontay Jones.

“When we come in at about 6:30, a line is already forming,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “In looking out the window now, this is the first time today that I don’t see people lined up by my window. We do have people standing in line I can’t see, around the corner.”

Her office window is not in the middle of the area where voters line up outside the annex but instead gives her a view of the line when it extends 100 feet or so. Voters file around a railing before they reach the door they’re allowed to enter.

In line by 5 p.m.

Jeff Giddens arrived about 4:50 pm. Wednesday and got in that line to vote. People coming out of the building after voting said they had been in line 20 to 30 minutes.

“If I get there and they say I have to come back, I’ll just come back,” Giddens said. “We have plenty of days to vote, and it’s worth it.  I’m just glad to see that everybody’s excited about voting, you know, as a citizen.”

In fact, voters in line by 5 p.m. are allowed to come in and vote. A poll worker goes outside at that time and determines where the end of the line is. People who show up after 5 p.m. are then asked to come back another day.

But the last voter who was outside Wednesday at 5 p.m. and stuck with it voted at 5:30 p.m. or shortly thereafter.

Although two more locations will be opened, one for three days and the other for six days, later during the 16 days of early voting, the Board of Elections and Registration Office, 113 North Main St., Suite 201 in the annex, remains the only location this week.

Three busy days

Around midday Tuesday, some voters had waited in line for an hour, one told the Statesboro Herald. Jones, who is also early voting poll manager at the annex, said she hadn’t heard anyone say they had waited as long as two hours but she hadn’t been asking voters about their wait time.

The line may have moved faster, but the number of voters Wednesday, 592, was actually higher than the 574 on Monday and the 567 Tuesday, as reported by Jones.

When voters age 75 or older arrive at the check-in table, poll workers move them to the front of the line, she noted. Additionally, staff members watch for voters who arrive outside with a walker or oxygen bottle and escort them in through a side door.

Because of COVID-19, signs and stickers on the walkway and floors remind voters to remain six feet apart.  In compliance with Gov. Brian Kemp’s emergency orders, wearing a mask cannot be required in a polling place but is strongly encouraged. The county provides masks, hand sanitizer and a glove for the hand that will touch the voting screen.

Also because of social distancing, only four of the eight voting machines in the office are currently in use.

This obviously slows the process and lengthens lines. Another factor is that many voters still aren’t familiar with the workings of Georgia’s new voting equipment and need guidance from poll workers, Jones observed.

Historic turnout

But locally, statewide and nationally, more people are simply voting early, and the lines here were short compared to some in other parts of Georgia.

The Secretary of State’s Office reported that 128,590 Georgians voted Monday, a record for the first day of early voting in the state. Voters waited six hours or more in Cobb County, according to the Associated Press, which also noted long lines in other Atlanta metro counties.

By Wednesday afternoon, a record 14 million Americans had already voted in the general election, according to an analysis from the U.S. Elections Project that was also reported by the Associated Press.  In 2016, just over 1.4 million Americans had voted by Oct. 16, the Elections Project reported, so the pace has increased roughly tenfold.

In 2016 in Bulloch County, 1,769 voters requested mail-out paper ballots for the Nov. 8 general election, and 1,617 were completed and returned. In the lead up to the Nov. 3, 2020, election, 7,749 absentee ballots had been requested in Bulloch as of Wednesday, but 300 had been cancelled, mostly by voters choosing to vote early in-person instead.

So that left 7,449 absentee ballots, of which 2,902 had been returned and verified as of Wednesday.

Also in the fall of 2016, in the first three days of early voting 1,289 Bulloch voters cast ballots, compared to the 1,733 so far this week.

Meanwhile, Bulloch County had 47,348 registered voters as of Wednesday, up from 34,926 at the November 2016 general election, in which 25,695 voted, a 73.5% turnout.

Early voting sites

In addition to being available for in-person voting 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays through Oct. 30, the elections office in the Bulloch County Annex will open for voting on one Saturday – not this Saturday, but Oct. 24 – from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

On the Georgia Southern University campus, early voting will be available in the Russell Union, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., for three days only, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 20–22.

The Honey Bowen Building, 1 Max Lockwood Drive in the Fair Road park, will also be open for early voting 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, and then 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday through Friday on the final week only, Oct. 26–30.