SC Voter Turnout Update, and A Look Ahead At Election Day

A total of 376 Stephens County voters cast their ballot in Advance In-Person voting on Wednesday, Oct. 30, bringing the number of ballots cast at the Historic Courthouse in Downtown Toccoa to 9,971.  Also, as of closing of polls on Oct. 30, 732 Absentee Ballots have been mailed out and 622 have been returned so far. There are 2 provisional ballots. 

Also, the previously advertised Board of Elections and Registration meeting for Monday, November 4 has been canceled.

In a late night press release yesterday,Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Addressed what he termed “Likely Foreign Interference” when he called a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia ID’s claiming to have voted multiple times, false.

He stated, “This is false, and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen this election. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election. We are working to combat this and identify the origin of it with our state and federal partners.”

He added that the video is being investigated, and said that the leadership at social media platforms where the video was posted have been asked to take the video down. 

He added, “This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort. Likely it is a production of Russian troll farms. As Americans we can’t let our enemies use lies to divide us and undermine our faith in our institutions – or each other.”

This press release came on the heals of a second week of record-setting voter turnout for Advance-in-person Voting in Georgia, and across the country. 

As of the end of voting on Oct. 31, state election officials stated that more than half of Georgia’s active voters have cast a ballot in the 2024 General election, including more than 3.4 million who have voted early in person. Another 230,608 absentee ballots have been returned, bringing the state’s total voter turnout to just under 3.7 million. In 2020, at this point in the election, approximately 2.3 million voters had cast a ballot in person, and in the 2022 midterms, approximately 1.9 million Georgians had voted at this point in the election.

WNEG News sat down with Stephens County Election Supervisor Bruce Carlisle yesterday afternoon to find out how voting in Stephens County was going. He first stressed that there would be no voting Monday, and said the new parking lot at the historic courthouse has been a great benefit, and he talked more about parking for Tuesday.

He added that in addition to the polls being closed Monday, there would be no Saturday voting, making today, Nov. 1, at 5 p.m. the end of Advance In Person Voting. 

Carlisle also talked about absentee ballots, and recommended that voters bring them in to the office in person, as opposed to mailing them, but added that they are working closely with the local post office. 

State officials also have issued a reminder that voters can check the status of their ballot by logging on to their myvoterpage at mvp.sos.ga.gov, where you can monitor the status of your ballot. You can also sign up for Ballot Tracking Notifications by scrolling down to the “Absentee Ballot Portal” section and selecting to “yes” to “Subscribe to notifications about the status of my ballot? ” and choosing at least one of the three methods of communication, which are Text, Phone Call (Voice), and/or Email.