Final tally for early voting in Laurens County tops 8.7K

By 5pm on Friday night, a long line of voters waited outside of the Laurens County Board of Elections & Registration office in downtown Dublin. The last day of early voting in Georgia was on Friday, but a race to get those final early votes cast was taking place in real time. 

Laurens County saw 24% of its more than 36,000 registered voters, nearly one in every four, cast ballots for candidates running for offices in the midterm election. The total number of votes cast, 8,718, is a couple of percentage points higher than during the early voting period for the 2022 midterm elections (7,913). Though a small percentage, that is a higher voter turnout by any measure. 

The early vote tally breakdown is 8.065 in person and 653 by mail. According to data by Georgia Votes, prior to Friday, there were spikes in voter turnout this week in comparison to the first days of early voting some two weeks ago. 

“I just really wanted to go ahead and get it over with,” said Dublin resident Donald timmons when asked why he had waited on the line to vote on Friday.

With some 27,000-plus registered voters waiting to vote on Tuesday, November 3, Election Day, local polling stations -NOTE: the Laurens County Board of Elections & Registration office is not a polling station on Election Day- there should be an expectation of wait times to cast ballots. On Friday, the wait times to cast ballots averaged around 2-3 minutes. 

There are several polling stations in Dexter, Dublin. Dudley, East Dublin, and Rentz, including Cedar Grove Fire Station, the Buckeye Fire Station, in the Stubbs Park Community Center gym, at the Hampton Mill-Dexter Community Center in Dexter, Dudley Fire Station #4 in Dudley, at the Reedy Springs-Rentz Fire Department on 2115 Davidson Street in Rentz, and at the Smith Precinct Building on 102 Broad Street in East Dublin.

On Tuesday, Election Day, polls open at 7am and close at 7pm. The Courier Herald will follow all of the races, including the race for House Representative 155 seat, in print, online, and on via a live blog on Facebook.

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