(Forsyth County, GA) The November 8 General and Special Election has arrived, and both poll workers and voters alike were prepared in Forsyth County.
Election Day voting
Election Day polling locations throughout Forsyth County were ready for a high turnout. Therese Yates, the polling manager at The Vine Community Church voting location, said they had a rush when they first opened at 7 a.m., with about 37 people in line to vote before the doors even opened.
While there was a lull after the early rush, she said the crowds usually vary throughout the day.
“We usually typically see a kind of a boost up around lunchtime, so now we're kind of in a lull again [in the early afternoon],” Yates said. “When schools get out, typically it'll go up again because kids are being picked up by their moms or dads and they'll come in and vote and then usually after work gets out, so usually after five [p.m.]. Five to seven [p.m.] can be pretty busy.”
While she did not work the last Midterm Election in 2018, Yates said the numbers are already higher for this election than during the May 2022 Primary Election and June 2022 Primary Run-off Election. Yates said it is typical to see a higher turnout for a General Election than a Primary Election. She also said they had about 700 voters turn up for each of those two previous elections, and were almost at 400 voters in the early afternoon today, with hours to go until the polls close.
One aspect about this election, Yates noted, was the high number of poll workers from the county. Forsyth County has had trouble recruiting enough poll workers for its elections since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, however, County leadership decided to approach County workers about helping, and received a positive response.
“We've had this fortunate thing where County workers have actually been working at the polls themselves,” Yates said. “So each of the polls has County workers. Here we have two firefighter recruits and a Forsyth County Fire Department Inspector. So they're here and they're working today the whole day with us and it's been kind of great to have them here.”
Advance Voting results
Both Forsyth County and the state of Georgia as a whole saw a huge turnout for the Advance Voting period from October 17 through November 4, with 2.5 million people voting early or by absentee ballot statewide. The majority of these votes - 2.3 million - were cast in person at polling stations. More than three-quarters of all absentee ballot requests - about 216,067- were returned during the early voting period.
These numbers come in much higher than the last Midterm Elections in 2018, almost reaching the early voting number of the 2020 Presidential Election when 2.6 million Georgia residents cast their ballot before Election Day.
“Georgia voters came out in near presidential-level numbers,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “County election directors handled that demand with the utmost professionalism. They navigated a whole host of challenges and executed seamlessly. They deserve our highest praise.”
Forsyth County is seeing a similar trend, tallying up 64,414 in-person advanced votes. As of the end of Sunday, November 6, 4,943 absentee ballots had been processed, but that number will increase as ballots can be dropped off until the polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Polls for the 2022 General and Special Election will close at 7 p.m. on November 8.
A potential run-off election date is scheduled for December 6.
For more information on voting in Forsyth County, click here.
If you have a news tip in Forsyth County, contact Justine Lookenott at justine.lookenott@newsbreak.com.
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