Busy Day At Polls in Stephens Co.

Busy is the word to describe Tuesday at the polls in Stephens County.

The total turnout was nearly 41 percent in the county for Tuesday’s election.

A line existed at the Senior Center at 7 p.m. when the polls closed and the last person reportedly voted sometime around 7:30 p.m.

Stephens County Registrar Theresa Kelley said that means a couple of thousand people turned out to vote Tuesday at the Senior Center.

“About 20 percent (of voters) were done at the precinct today,” said Kelley. “There were lines. With having just one precinct, there were long lines, but I do not think that anybody waited more than about 30 minutes tops to go from start to finish to get everything done.”

There were reports of some confusion about where to vote on Election Day.

This is about the fifth election where Election Day voting itself in Stephens County has taken place at the Senior Center on Rose Lane.

Stephens County moved to a single voting precinct last year as a cost-saving measure.

According to Kelley, having just one voting location on Election Day saves about $5,000 an election.

Kelley said she will make sure there are more machines for the next planned countywide election in 2016.

“But it is still going to be busy,” said Kelley. “You still have the choice of paper ballots, coming up and doing early voting or Saturday voting.”

Kelley said she does appreciate all of the work that the poll workers put in on Election Day, starting before 7 a.m. and ending after 7 p.m.

“It was a long day for them,” said Kelley.

Kelley said that other than lines, there were no major problems at the polls in Stephens County on Tuesday.