Georgia’s advanced in-person voting for the Nov. 5 general election begins Tuesday, Oct. 15 – not Monday, because that’s the Columbus Day holiday. In Bulloch County there will be one main early voting location for 14 weekdays and the two voting Saturdays, plus two added locations for a few days each.
Early voting will be hosted by the Bulloch County Board of Elections and Registration office at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, Oct. 15-18, and then Monday through Friday, Oct. 21-25 and Oct. 28-Nov. 1.
The County Annex will also be the only place to vote on the two Saturdays, Oct. 19 and Oct. 26, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Additionally, three days of early voting for Bulloch County registered voters will be held in the Russell Union, 85 Georgia Ave., on the Georgia Southern University campus, Tuesday through Thursday, Oct. 22-24. Voting hours there will be 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Final week location
For the final five weekdays of early voting there will again be another voting location, in addition to the County Annex, county Election Supervisor Shontay Jones reported last week. But voters should note that this will be a new location, since the Bulloch County Recreation and Parks Department’s Honey Bowen Building – the traditional, ground-level accessible site – was booked for other activities.
The new final-week early voting site will be the Entrepreneurship Innovation Incubator at 64 East Main St., Statesboro. It will be open for early voting only Monday through Friday, Oct. 28-Nov. 1, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Although the Innovation Incubator, operated by Georgia Southern’s Business Innovation Group, was developed in cooperation with the Downtown Statesboro Development Authority, the 14,000-square-foot facility is property of the city of Statesboro. After a $2.5 million renovation completed this year, its new front and parking area faces Railroad Street and Eagle Creek Brewing Company.
“We just recently got blessed with another location. …, ” Jones said. “Where we would have voted the Honey Bowen Building that very last week of early voting, which is (Oct.) 28th through November 1st, we’ve added … 64 East Main Street. They’ve been gracious enough to allow us to use that.”
Statesboro Family YMCA had also offered space at its facility, but state rules for early voting require the use of a government-owned building, she said, and 64 East Main St. fulfills that requirement.
“We knew this would be overwhelming up here (at the County Annex) if we did all three weeks of early voting here alone, with parking, staff and everything, and we wanted a place that would be kind of easier to access,” Jones said, “and that is what Honey Bowen did for us in the past, for elderly and disabled voters who would have limited steps and available parking”
Similarly, the 64 East Main facility is on a single level with its parking area.
“It’s a very nice-looking spot, so I think it will do well,” she said.
The County Annex voting area is also accessible for people using wheelchairs, walkers or scooters, but only via a long ramp that winds back on itself. Still, the Annex is the one location that will be open all 14 weekdays, and it will again be Bulloch County’s only location for Saturday voting.
Meanwhile, the Board of Elections and Registration staff began mailing absentee ballots Monday, Oct. 7 – as early as allowed in Georgia election law – to about 1,000 Bulloch County voters who had already requested them. The deadline to request a no-excuses absentee ballot is Oct. 25.
What’s on the ballots?
As you might expect, the presidential race is at the top of every ballot. But the choices in that space are not limited to the two that everyone has heard of. Of course, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his vice-presidential running mate JD Vance, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris and her vice-presidential running mate Tim Walz appear there.
But the Georgia ballot also includes Libertarian Party presidential nominee Chase Oliver and running mate Mike ter Maat, Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein and running mate Rudolph Ware, plus two pairs of independents: Claudia De la Cruz for president with Karina Garcia for vice president, and Cornel West for president with Melina Abdullah for vice president.
Down the ballot, three competitive races for Bulloch County government positions are to be decided in this general election, but each individual voter will see only two of them. The one countywide race is between Democratic nominee Craig R. Tremble and Republican nominee Chuck Francis for county coroner. Both Francis and Tremble have experience as deputy coroners, but neither is the incumbent coroner.
Voters who reside in County Commissioner District 1 will choose between Republican challenger R. Ryan Brannen and Democratic incumbent Ray Edwin Mosley for Seat 1-A on the Board of Commissioners.
Voters who reside in County Commissioner District 2 will choose between Democratic candidate Leonard “Len” Fatica and Republican candidate Nick G. Newkirk for Seat 2-C. Neither is the incumbent, but Newkirk previously won a primary and runoff against incumbent Jappy Stringer for the GOP nomination, while Fatica appeared unopposed on the Democratic primary ballot in May.
Several previous challenger candidates who now appear alone for their offices on the general election ballots, such as David Bennett for Board of Commissioners chairman, Ray M. Davis for Commission Seat 2-A and Robert Busbee for Ogeechee Judicial Circuit district attorney, in effect won their offices in the Republican primary, since they have no Democratic Party opponents.
That’s also true of the one local Republican incumbent, Sheriff Noel J. Brown, who won against a challenger in the primary. A few other Bulloch County incumbents were unopposed all along.
One city of Statesboro special election, with John Grotheer, Ken Jackson and Tangie Johnson vying to fill the unexpired term of former long-time District 1 City Councilman Phil Boyum, is programmed to appear only on the ballots of Statesboro District 1 voters.
Between the presidential and county races, Democratic candidate Elizabeth “Liz” Johnson, a Bulloch County resident, is again challenging Republican incumbent Rick W. Allen for Georgia’s 12th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The only contested seat in the Georgia Legislature appearing on any Bulloch County ballots is that between Democratic challenger Madeline Ryan Smith and Republican incumbent Butch Parrish for the District 158 state House seat.
Proposed amendments
Two proposed amendments to the Georgia Constitution appear on the ballot. One would limit increases in the assessed value of “homesteads,” in other words owner-occupied homes, resulting from real estate inflation, unless local government boards opt out. The other amendment would allow the creation of a Georgia Tax Court. Also on the ballot, a statewide referendum question could raise the value of tangible personal property exempt from property tax from $7,500 to $20,000.
Paper sample-ballot brochures, with other information on the elections, are available at the county elections office, and a sample ballot is slated for publication in Thursday’s Statesboro Herald. The brochures contain detailed info about photo I.D. requirements.
Georgia voters can see a personalized sample ballot or apply online to receive an absentee ballot by visiting the statewide My Voter Page, https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/ .