Greene County Elections Supervisor Kathleen Mayers reported a low turnout for the early primary voting in Greene County but expected it to hit a 15 percent participation rate with voters by this Saturday. According to Mayers, early Spring Primary voting is historically slow, especially if the field is more than two candidates.
Georgia has open primaries, meaning voters are free to choose whichever ballot style, Democrat or Republican. However, each voter must declare which ballot style they intent to vote. This is true for voting in person, by mail or on election day.
Three options exist for casting ballots: advanced voting-in-person, absentee voting by mail and in person voting on election day. Advanced voting began on May 7, and voters can cast their ballots May 24 at their assigned election poll location.
“In Spring, especially post-COVID, people are catching up on activities and travel they have put off for some time,” Mayer said. “However, historically we show a final 30 percent voting rate by close of polls for Spring and 80 percent for Fall.”
To date, 75 mail-in ballots have been received of the 300 mailed out. Final counts of these ballots must be in receipt no later than close of the polling hours on May 24 to be counted in the election. Due to several crowded races, there remains a high probability of a runoff in June. The winner must have 50 percent plus one vote to confirm a win.
For 2022, there is limited county activity in Greene County. In District 1, there are candidates for Board of Commissioners (BOC) and the Board of Education (BOE) on both the Republican ballot and the Democratic ballot. These candidates will run against their other party opposition on the November ballot. In District 1 on BOC, Republican incumbent Angela Deering will meet Democrat Melanie Miller on the general election ballot in November. In District 1 BOE, Republican incumbent Steve Kilgore will meet Shelia Carson Drake on the November ballot.
A key vote will be the approval or not of a special one percent sale and use tax imposed in Greene County for transportation purposes, including capital outlay projects consisting of road, street and bridge purposes. The special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) would raise an estimated of $35 million to the county coffers for a period not to exceed five years.
Mayers, a former executive with GTE and Greene County Board of Education member, says their main job at the election office is to facilitate voters to cast their ballots. In 2020, the state added more voting equipment to process votes. Greene County currently has 28 machines and 10 poll workers to maintain the flow of an efficient voting process. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 24.