2020 may be a record year for voting in Houston County

After the second day of early voting, Elections Assistant Supervisor Andy Holland said that this year is shaping up to be one for the record books for overall voting in Houston County.

Tuesday was the first day of early voting, and Holland said the amount of people that showed up posed a bit of a challenge at the polling place. “We had people in line in front of the building at like 5:30 in the morning,” he shared. “We don’t open until 8:00.”

There were no major equipment problems to deal with, and Holland was thankful for that, but he did mention the state system that is used to look up and enter in voter information was running slow on the first day of voting, which held things up just a bit and made the wait times a little longer. However, the bulk of any slow-down was more so due to safety guidelines set in place by the ongoing pandemic.

“We had the challenge of trying to continue to social distance people in the building and in the polling area,” revealed Holland. “So, of course, that’s going to slow you up a little bit, but there’s not a whole lot that can be done about that because we have to try and keep people safe. We were able to kind of make some adjustments, and the system ran a little faster on Wednesday. We were able to process more voters with a lower wait time and a much shorter line.”

In addition to trying to keep people six feet apart, there remains the issue of necessary sterilization. “We have to sanitize styluses between each voter,” Holland explained. “To ensure that voters don’t have to touch the screen with their fingers or their hands, they’ll get a stylus when they’re issued their voter card, and we’re wiping down those styluses in between each use. We’re doing that in addition to trying to limit the number of people in the smaller voting space so that people aren’t piling on top of each other. We’re maintaining that level of social distance and safety as much as we can without severely impacting the wait time.”

On day one of early voting, Holland verified that 776 people came through the Houston Board of Elections office in Perry to cast their votes. “It’s probably the most we’ve voted on the first day here in Perry,” he commented, later adding that the numbers increased to 820 on the second day of early voting and that by the time the last week of voting comes around, turnouts in the thousands per day are expected.

“It’s already been kind of a record year with the amount of absentee ballots that have been requested,” Holland pointed out. “That’s been a huge increase on what we would normally do, but I think that by the time Monday comes around, and we open up our two additional voting locations, you’ll see really big numbers everyday. I think that it will end up being a record year for overall turnout, returns of absentee ballots and turnout in early voting. I think it’s going to be an increase all around.”

For those who requested absentee ballots, Holland said, “We have a drop box in our building just inside each of the two entrances that are open. It’s on the Main Street side and the Jernigan Street side. You don’t have to stand in line to drop off a ballot. Just come in the building like you normally would. We also have a drop box at the Houston County annex building in Warner Robins that is also just inside the entrance doors.”

Some who had previously requested absentee ballots are now deciding that they want to come to the polls and vote in person instead. To those, Holland advised, “Bring your absentee ballot with you to the poll so that we can cancel it. That process can take a little longer, but if you bring your ballot with you when you come to vote, that could speed things up a bit.”

The Houston Healthcare Pavilion and Central Georgia Technical College (CGTC) are the two additional voting poll locations that will open on Monday, October 19. Voting will start at 8:00 a.m., and as with the Houston Board of Elections office, it will continue until 5:00 p.m. The only exception to this time schedule will be on October 24, the special Saturday voting opportunity that will take place at the Houston Board of Elections office and Houston Healthcare Pavilion (no Saturday voting at CGTC). On that date at both locations, voting will be from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

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