Early in-person voting began Oct. 12 and closed Oct. 30 ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

MOULTRIE, Ga. – For the last three weeks, roughly 40 percent of Colquitt County’s registered voters made their selections, either in person or by absentee ballots.

On Monday — the calm before the storm of Election Day — Registrar Paula McCullough reported that 8,077 votes had been cast in person during early voting at the Courthouse Annex. The early voting period for the 2020 General Election began Oct. 12 and lasted 16 days until Oct. 30. The largest day was the last one: 707 citizens voted that day.

McCullough said this was the busiest early-voting period by far since it was first instituted in Georgia in 2004 (when there was only one week of early voting; that expanded prior to the 2008 election cycle).

But that’s not all of the Colquitt County votes turned in so far. Voters were able to request absentee ballots to be sent to their home addresses, and 3,977 made such requests locally. McCullough said 2,433 of those ballots were in their possession as of Monday morning. Voters did have the option of canceling those ballots in order to vote in person, and McCullough said 811 did that so far.

All that remains is Tuesday’s Election Day, when local voters will cast ballots at their assigned precinct. Absentee ballots can be received either by mail or at the drop box behind the Courthouse Annex by 7 p.m. Tuesday to count toward the final tally.

While the opening of the absentee ballots began two weeks ago, McCullough said the scanning process began Monday.

“Everything went smoothly,” she said about the overall early voting process. “The system slowed down some the first couple of days. One ballot got jammed going in. I’ll be glad at 7 p.m. (Nov. 3).”

That is the time polls close on Election Day after opening at 7 a.m. McCullough said that’s usually a day full of phone calls to her office, either from precinct workers who can’t find a name on a list or from citizens asking where to go for voting.

For the state of Georgia, a record 2,686,017 were cast by in-person early voting. Through Saturday, the number of absentee ballots cast by mail statewide was 1,202,459.