A rush of Advance In Person voting on Friday in Oconee County brought the total number of votes cast at the end of early voting for the Nov. 3 election to 16,401--up by 445 from the number cast at this point four years ago.
With a decline in Absentee By Mail voting and an increase in the number of registered voters in the county, the turnout percentage at this point is lower at 47.4 than the 48.6 percent who had cast a ballot at the end of early voting four years ago.
Absentee By Mail ballots continued to come in this week, with 728 received by the end of the on Friday, but only 921 Absentee ballots have been sent out. Five of those have been returned but rejected, subject to the voter correcting problems with the ballot as cast.
At this point four years ago, the county had received 1,089 Absentee ballots from the 1,347 issued.
The change in use of Absentee by Mail voting from four years ago indicates that some shift in voter preferences on how to cast the ballot has taken place.
How many voters will go to the county’s four voting precinct locations to cast a ballot on Tuesday is the unknown. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Four years ago, when the final turnout was 68.7 percent of registered voters, 45.2 percent of eligible voters had cast a ballot Advance In Person, 19.6 percent had cast a ballot on Election Day, and 3.8 percent of the registered voters had cast a ballot Absentee By Mail.
At this point in this election, 45.3 percent of the registered voters have cast a ballot Advance In Person, but only 2.1 percent have cast a ballot Absentee By Mail.
Final Week Of Early Voting
Advance In Person voting in raw numbers has been heavy this week, running ahead of the number of votes cast each day in the final week of early voting four years ago until Friday.
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Voting remained heavy on Friday, with 1,464 voters casting a ballot, the largest number of voters to use Advance In Person voting in the 16 days it was possible. In 2022, the number casting a ballot on the final day of early voting was 1,542.
Oconee County has 34,600 registered voters at present. That number four years ago was 32,806. In 2018, it was 29,408.
In 2022, voters had 17 days to cast a ballot Advance In Person. Because of the Oct. 12 holiday, voters had only 16 days to cast a ballot Advance In Person this year.
As would be expected because of the growth in the voters lists, Advance In Person tallies generally ran higher each day in 2026 than they did in 2022 or 2018.
Turnout for Advance In Person voting was highest in Oconee Central Precinct (48.6 percent of registered voters), followed by Oconee South (47.7 percent), Oconee Northeast (40.8 percent), and Dark Corner (38.5 percent).
Oconee Northeast Precinct, which includes Bogart, and Dark Corner Precinct are most distant from the Advance In Person early voting venue of the county Administrative Building north of Watkinsville.
Construction on SR 316 has made access to the early voting location for voters in those precincts even more challenging.
So far, 3.9 percent of the ballots returned by voters in the Oconee Central precinct have been Absentee By Mail, while that figure in Oconee South is 3.0 percent, in Dark Corner is 4.7 percent, and in Oconee Northeast Precinct is 6.8 percent.
Across the county as a whole, that percent of registered voters using the Absentee By Mail ballot is 4.4 percent, with the figure casting a ballot Advance In Person at 45.3 percent.
State, Regional Comparisons
The Georgia Secretary of State Office reports turnout as a percent of Active Voters rather than of eligible voters, and that figure for Oconee County is 49.9 percent, the second highest in the state, behind Towns County in north Georgia.
Across the state, turnout based on Active Votes is 37.4 percent.
Turnout at this point is 40.3 percent in Clarke County, 37.0 in Jackson County, 30.1 percent in Barrow County, 37.2 percent in Walton County, and 38.6 percent in Gwinnett County.
Oconee County is split between state House District 120 and 121, with Oconee Precinct Northeast in the 120th, and the other three precincts in the 121st.
House District 120 also includes a large part of Clarke County and parts of Barrow and Jackson counties.
House District 121 includes parts of Clarke County.
State Senate District 46 includes all of Oconee County and parts of Clarke County, Walton County, Barrow County, and Gwinnett County.
Turnout data are not available by legislative district.
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