With just over two days left for in-person early voting, Bulloch County’s turnout toward next Tuesday’s, May 19, partisan general primary and nonpartisan general election had surpassed the 3,000-voter mark and 6.2% turnout of the county’s 50,681 “active” registered voters.

As of 3:33 p.m. Wednesday, a total of 3,156 Bulloch County residents had participated either by voting early in-person or by absentee ballot, according to the Election Data Hub maintained online by the Elections Division of the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

At least for the data hub, the Elections Division measures turnout numbers against “active” voter counts, which yields a higher percentage than if the total from a county’s unrevised voter registration list is used as the baseline. For example, Bulloch County’s count of 54,817 registered voters from a week or so ago would have included a substantial number of “inactive” voters, who usually haven’t voted in an election or communicated with the local elections office in the last five years. Measured against that number, those 3,156 voters represent a 5.76% turnout.

In-person advanced voting continues 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday, May 14, and Friday, May 15. But early voting will end with the last voter in line at the Elections Office area at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro as of 5 p.m. Friday.

Tuesday’s the day

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.

Just as during early voting, a state-accepted form of photo ID is required. This can be a Georgia driver’s license, a valid identification card issue by an agency of Georgia or another state, a valid U.S. passport, government employee or military ID or tribal identification card with a photo.

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.

Party ballot breakout

Of the 3,156 Bulloch County ballots cast by 3:33 p.m. Wednesday, 1,901 were Republican primary ballots, 1,200 were Democratic primary ballots, and 55 were nonpartisan-only ballots. Although a voter cannot vote both party ballots, the nonpartisan ballot, featuring choices for judgeships and school board members, is included with both party ballots.

The Democratic and Republican ballots feature races for offices from governor, lieutenant governor, other top state offices and a U.S. Senate seat down through U.S. House and Georgia General Assembly seats to county commission seats.

Statewide update

Statewide, the combined early in-person and absentee turnout rate had reached 9.1% of active, registered voters by midafternoon Wednesday, with 671,798 of the state’s 7,357,126 active voters participating, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office election data hub.

So at that point, Bulloch County’s turnout lagged almost three percentage points behind the statewide rate.

Older county info

While the state hub is updated several times daily, county officials have been posting a separate online report after 5 p.m. each advanced-voting day.

A cumulative total of 2,803 Bulloch voters had participated as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, according to a county report. That included 2,655 Bulloch residents who had voted early in-person during 12 weekdays and two Saturdays, another 146 who had voted paper absentee ballots and two military or overseas U.S. citizens who voted by electronic ballot delivery,

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 only 135 Bulloch County-issued absentee paper ballots remained at-large, since only 292 were issued in the first place and 157 had been returned, of which 156 were accepted, according to the state hub’s counts on Wednesday afternoon.