In the first three of the five days of early voting, 1,862 Bulloch County residents voted early in-person or by returning mailed absentee ballots for the June 16 state and county primary runoffs, according to the Election Data Hub maintained by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
That would be, so far, about 3.7% of the county’s 50,694 “active” registered voters, as reported at the May primary.
The only place to vote early in-person in Bulloch County is the Board of Elections and Registration office in the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro. It is open for this purpose 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday of this week only.
There will be no Saturday voting here in the runoff.
However, all 16 of Bulloch County’s traditional Election Day precinct voting places will be open 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, for their assigned voters who have not voted early or absentee.
Of the 1,698 Bulloch County early in-person ballots accepted in those first three days, Monday through Wednesday, 1,468 voted using the Republican ballot, while just 238 voted as Democrats, and of the 166 absentee ballots returned so far, 100 were Republican and 64 were Democratic Party ballots.
But the runoff races for the Republican nominations for one of Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats and for governor top the Republican ballot, and the only remaining local race, for a Bulloch County Board of Commissioners seat in District 2 between incumbent Commissioner Toby Conner and challenger Dr. Ted Redman, is also on the Republican ballot for that district.
Republican races
The GOP Senate contenders, who emerged from a crowded May 19 primary field, are Mike Collins, currently U.S. representative from Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, and Derek Dooley, the former college football coach and player. The winner be the Republican candidate to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff in the Nov. 3 general election.
Next on the GOP ballot is the much-publicized runoff between businessman Rick Jackson and current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for the GOP nomination for governor. The winner will face Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, in the general election, since she won her Democratic primary outright over six other candidates.
One Republican primary challenger candidate from this region, Candler County School Superintendent Fred “Bubba” Longgrear, is now in a statewide runoff for state school superintendent with incumbent State Superintendent Richard Woods. The runoff winner between those two will face a Democratic nominee, Lydia Powell, in November.
Other Republican runoffs on the June 16 ballot are those between Greg Dolezal and John F. Kennedy for the lieutenant governor nomination; Tim Fleming and Vernon Jones for the secretary of state nomination; and Bobby Mehan and Josh Tolbert for the nomination for Public Service Commissioner from District 5.
Democratic ballot
The top statewide contest on the Democratic Party runoff ballot is the race for the party’s lieutenant governor nomination between Josh McLaurin, who is a current state senator from the 14th District, and Nabilah Parkes, the recent former state senator from District 7.
Here in Georgia’s 12th Congressional District, Democratic Party voters in the runoff are also choosing their party’s nominee for the seat in Congress between Traci “Acree” George and Ceretta Smith. The primary runoff winner will challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, the Republican nominee, in the Nov. 3 general election.
Other races on the Democratic ballot for June 16 include the contests between Dana Barrett and Penny Brown Reynolds for the party’s secretary of state nomination; between DeAndre Mathis and Keisha Sean Waites for the insurance commissioner nomination; and between Nikki Porcher and Michelle Michi Sanchez for the labor commissioner nomination.