HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — Friday was the last day for early voting.
We looked into how voter turnout was for two of our biggest Central Georgia elections: Houston County and Bleckley County.
For some, early voting means beating the rush on election day.
“I have an injury in my leg,” Hank Allen explained. “It works better for me if there's not a crowd."
However, voting means so much more to Allen, who's lived in Warner Robins for 43 years.
“I think it's my civic duty to make sure I put my voice into who gets elected,” Allen said. “It’s all our responsibility to get out and vote because if you don’t vote, then you don’t have nothing to say.”
E.K. Hill, Houston County Board of Registrar site manager, says not everyone shares that opinion.
“This early voting has been very, very slow,” he said.
When we spoke Friday morning, Hill said numbers at both voting sites were over 1,930 folks out of over 100,000 registered voters.
“That's very low, yes,” he said
Hill says it could be because it's not a presidential election, and they have a county-wide SPLOST and City Council seat on the line instead.
“So, for that reason, they don't come out to vote. It kind of makes me feel kind of bad because they don't take it seriously, and they should take all voting seriously,” Hill said.
In Bleckley County, the opposite could be said for them.
“We wasn't expecting to have an election in our county, but it's been going very well so far,” Bleckley County's Chief Registrar Cheryl Ates said.
She says this is a special election.
“It’s for our sheriff,” she said. “Who will be our next sheriff?"
The previous sheriff Kris Coody resigned after pleading guilty to gripping T.V. judge Glenda Hatchett.
When we spoke at noon, Ates said over 1,300 folks had cast a vote out of 8,000 registered voters.
“People are getting more interested in registering to vote in our county, but over 8,000 is pretty good, I think," she said.
Ates says it could be due to more folks moving to the area, like Jack Wall who moved here six years ago.
“The office of the sheriff is maybe as important as an office as county government,” Wall said.
He says elections for the sheriff don’t happen often and the turnout shows how important this is to the county.
“Everyone should have the right to vote and everyone should exercise that right,” Wall said.
We asked in Forsyth and the registrar's office told us they've had over 500 early voters and 90 absentee ballots as of Friday, early afternoon.
They said the turnout was just okay for having 3,400 registered voters.
The Baldwin office says turnout has been low but expected in an odd election year. They say over 930 people have voted out of almost 28,000 registered voters.
Election day is Tuesday.