Tuesday, May 19, is Election Day in Georgia’s 2026 party general primary and nonpartisan general election. All 16 of Bulloch County’s traditional voting precincts will open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for their assigned voters who haven’t voted early or absentee.

That could theoretically be any portion of the remaining 91%. Just 9%, or 4,565 of Bulloch’s 50,672 active, registered voters either voted in-person during the 17 days of early voting that ended at 5 p.m. Friday or had returned absentee ballots as of Monday afternoon.

The last day of in-person early voting in the elections office at the Bulloch County Annex proved to be the busiest of the 15 weekdays and two Saturdays provided.

“Today, we saw our highest turnout in the last three weeks, serving 765 voters,” Election Supervisor Shontay Jones stated in a Friday night email to news organizations, accompanying the county’s final, informal daily early voting report.

Although the in-person advanced voting had concluded, a few more absentee ballots that had been requested by and mailed to Bulloch voters continued to arrive back at the elections office through Monday, as reflected in updates to the Election Data Hub maintained online by the Elections Division of the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. As of 2:30 p.m. Monday, the state hub showed that 223 Bulloch County absentee ballots had been returned and “accepted,” out of 292 originally issued and 293 requested.

The 223, added to the 4,342 in-person early voters, gave the total of 4,565 advance voters, equal to 9% of the voters now on the “active” list for having voted in recent years or updated their registration.

For comparison, in the last gubernatorial election year, four years ago, Bulloch County’s turnout during early and absentee voting for the May 24, 2022 primary was 10% of active registered voters, according to numbers reported in the Herald that week.

The 2022 primary election day pushed the total turnout to 27%, but that was with roughly 44,100 active, registered voters then, or about 6,500 fewer active voters than now.

Party ballot breakout

This time around, of the 4,342 in-person early ballots cast in Bulloch County, 2,515 were Republican primary ballots, 1,747 were Democratic primary ballots, and 80 were nonpartisan-only ballots. Of the 223 absentee voters, 119 voted Democratic primary ballots, 103 voted Republican primary ballots, and one voted nonpartisan-only.

Although a voter cannot legally vote both parties’ ballots, the nonpartisan ballot, featuring choices for judgeships and school board members, is included with either party ballot. A relatively small number of voters choose to vote only the nonpartisan ballot, which leaves them free to choose either party’s future ballot in the event of a primary runoff.

During the primary, the separate 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.

Election Day voting

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 issued 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.

Local races

The most active county-level contest in Bulloch is the three-candidate Republican primary race in Board of Commissioners District 2 for Seat 2-B. Incumbent Toby Conner is being challenged by both Frank Bedell and Ted Redman.

That race could go to a runoff, and some of the statewide races with multiple newcomer candidates in both parties are almost certain to do so. The primary runoffs would be held June 16.

The only in-county nonpartisan race in the May 19 election is in Board of Education District 5 between incumbent Glennera Martin and challenger Jessica L. Jones for that district’s school board seat.

In Commissioners District 1, Spencer Johnson is running as a Republican to challenge Seat 1-B incumbent Anthony Simmons, a Democrat. But they appear on separate party ballots at this phase, so that race won’t be decided until November.

Statewide update

Statewide, the combined early in-person and absentee turnout rate had risen to include 14% of active, registered voters as of 2:32 p.m. Monday, with 1,028,761 of the state’s 7,356,881 active voters participating, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office election data hub.

At the top of the Republican ballot, five candidates – Buddy Carter, Mike Collins, John F. Coyne III, Derek Dooley and Jon McColumn – are vying for their party’s nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, who appears unopposed at the top of the Democratic ballot.

With Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, now in the last year of his second, and by state Constitution final, term, both parties have fields of candidates for that office. On the Republican Party ballot, the race is among Chris Carr, Clark Dean, Rick Jackson, Burt Jones, Gregg Kirkpatrick, Brad Raffensperger, Tom Williams and Ken Yasger. On the Democratic Party ballot, the candidates for governor are Keisha Lance Bottoms, Olu Brown, Amanda Duffy, Geoff Duncan, Jason Esteves, Derrick Jacson and Mike Thurmond.

But there are also races for lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner and state school superintendent.

U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Georgia 12th District, faces one in-party challenger on the Republican ballot, Tori Branum. But five Democratic candidates – Traci George, Tracell Peace-Nichols, Ceretta Smith, Chris Stephens and Brianna Woodson – appear on their party’s ballot, contending to be a challenger for the congressional seat.

On the nonpartisan ballot, two races for seats on the Georgia Supreme Court – between challenger Miracle Rankin and incumbent Justice Charlie Bethel and between challenger Jen Auer Jordan and incumbent Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren – have been drawing more attention than some of the statewide partisan races.