Early Voting Brisk on First Day in Franklin, Hart Counties

As expected, Advance Voting has gotten off to a brisk start in Franklin and Hart Counties.

Advance voting is available from 9a to 5p Monday – Friday and from 9a to 4p the next two Saturdays.

In Franklin County, Nora Waters with the Elections office in Carnesville said almost 80 people had already been in to cast early ballots within the first two hours.

The Elections office on the Royston Highway has been preparing for a big turnout over the next three weeks by installing extra voting machines.

Waters said so far people have not had any problems casting their ballots

“It is going smoothly. We’ve had a couple of people who could not find the printer. We’ve added shelves underneath the machines so they’re printing out underneath and they didn’t know to look underneath to get them. By doing that we could add more machines,” she said.

Waters said of the more than 300 absentee paper ballots mailed out, 16 have come back so far.

In Hart County the line of absentee voters first thing Monday morning was out the door, according to Elections Supervisor Robin Webb. Webb said by noon they had had 139 voters Monday morning and about 40 absentee paper ballots returned.

She said there would have been more but the computers went down and some people chose not to stay.

“It was only down for a minute. It was just a server thing and it was nothing that would stop voting. Instead of you getting a pre-populated piece of paper you had to fill it out,” Webb explained.

The Elections office in Hart County has also been having problems with its landline.

When WLHR News called the main number Monday we got a recording saying the call could not be completed.

Webb said phone repair people were out Friday to fix the line but she said her office was still having trouble on Monday.

Advance voting runs through November 4.

In Franklin County, voters are going to the Franklin County Board of Elections office in Carnesville on the Royston Highway.

In Hart County, voters are going to the Hart County Board of Elections office on Cade St. In Hartwell.

Again, hours for advance voting are from 9a to 5p Monday – Friday and on Saturday the 22 and Saturday the 29 from 9a to 4p.