More than 52% of Bulloch County’s active, registered voters cast ballots Tuesday and in the preceding weeks of early voting. Large majorities said “yes” to continuing two local sales taxes and allowing liquor stores to be licensed in the county’s unincorporated areas.

Above those questions, local majorities chose Republican candidates from U.S. Senate challenger Herschel Walker and incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp on down the ballot, with one exception. That exception was Bulloch County Commissioner Anthony Simmons, a 30-year Democratic incumbent re-elected to Seat 1-B with 2,688 votes to 1,931 votes for Republican challenger Preston Tutt III in majority-minority Commission District 1.

But in Commission District 2, where seat 2-B Commissioner Walter Gibson, a Republican, is retiring, 13,792 voters chose Toby Conner, also a Republican, to succeed him, while Democratic candidate Jake Hallman received 4,740 votes. All of the vote counts in this story are unofficial and incomplete election-night totals, with final results yet to be certified.

The biggest local winner in this election was “yes,” since it was the choice of voters by large margins on the three local referendums.

To the question of allowing “package sales of distilled spirits” in other words liquor stores, in the unincorporated area of the county, the vote count was 16,825 “yes” to 5,909 “no.”

On extending the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or E-SPLOST, for five more years, the count  was 16,457 “yes” to 6,468 “no.”

On  the  first  five-year extension of the Transportation SPLOST,  voters went  13,056 “yes” to 9,629 “no.”

Turnout did not quite match that for the last gubernatorial election. In the fall 2018 general election, which also featured a race for governor between Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams, nearly 60% of Bulloch County’s active, registered voters participated.

Lined up at 7 a.m.

But poll workers opening the doors at many of Bulloch’s 16 precinct voting places at 7 a.m. Tuesday found voters already lined up. When a reporter visited poll managers at four of the precincts – Statesboro, Church, Brooklet and Fair – later in the day, all shared a similar observation.

At the Statesboro Precinct voting place, namely the William James Educational Complex, 52 people voted in the first 30 minutes after the doors opened, and the flow of voters remained steady through the day, reported poll manager David Keene.

“And we had almost 2,000 people early vote out of this precinct, so it’s really been a good turnout, and it’s not over yet,” Keene said at 4:25 p.m.

By that time 815 people had voted Tuesday at that one location, with two and a half hours left before the close. One of the county’s largest voting precincts by population, Statesboro Precinct is assigned nearly 7,000 voters, and 20 touch-screen machine and printer sets, all of which were in steady use.

At the “Church” Precinct polling place, in Statesboro Primitive Baptist Church, 807 people had voted in-person Tuesday by 5:05 p.m.

“A line came in at 7 o’clock, and it’s been steady since then,” said assistant poll manager Edith Penny. Poll manager Teresa Tucker said about 80 voters had filed through in the first 45 minutes. Church Precinct also had 20 machines available but was operating only 14.

At the Brooklet Precinct, which shares the Brooklet Community Building with an after-school program and so has reduced space available, just seven poll works and nine voting machines had accommodated 983 voters by 5:49 p.m.

At that time, between 30 and 40  would-be voters were standing in a line folded back on itself to fit them all inside the building.

“It’s been steady, and it always gets busy between five and seven,” said poll manager Donna Martin.

After the polls closed at 7 p.m., the vote count at the County Annex proceeded faster than in some  recent  years, with unofficial totals available by 10:30 p.m.

In the U.S. Senate race, the Bulloch County totals were 14,839 for Herschel Walker, the Republican challenger, to 8,182 for Sen. Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democrat, and 416 for Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver.

In the governor’s race, the Bulloch totals were 16,048 for Gov.  Brian Kemp, the incumbent Republican, to 7,340  for  Stacey Abrams, the Democratic  challenger, and 172 for Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel.

In all, 23,616 Bulloch County voters participated in the election, out of 44,924 on the active registered list.