Voters turned out in big numbers Tuesday in Dougherty, Lee counties

ALBANY — Voters turned out in large numbers for Tuesday’s historic runoff election that saw two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates win seats, the first time the party has won a Senate election since 2000 and the first time voters have elected a black and a Jewish candidate.

In Lee County, overall turnout was at nearly 64% as of Friday afternoon with some overseas military ballots and provisional ballots remaining to be counted.

“It was a real good turnout for a runoff,” Lee County Elections Supervisor Veronica Johnson said. “We had more election-Day voters than we had in November. In November more people voted early.”

Voters quickly moved through the precincts throughout the day, and there were no major issues.

The only choices on the ballot were the two Senate races and a statewide runoff election for a Georgia Public Service Commission term, as opposed to the myriad state and national races and ballot questions for the Nov. 3 general election.

While incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both Republicans, lost to Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, incumbent Republican PSC Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. won with about 50.4% of the vote.

“It was busy, but it was just steady all day, no big problems,” Jonson said.

In Dougherty County, there was one glitch when the ballot scanner at the Pine Bluff Precinct was discovered to be malfunctioning by poll workers Tuesday morning.

Voters were able to continue voting and printing ballots, which were placed in an emergency bin and later fed into a scanner by elections officials after polls closed for the evening, Dougherty County Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson said. The faulty equipment was replaced within a short time period after attempts to fix it were unsuccessful.

The unofficial results, prior to the addition of military and provisional ballots, was a 50.74% turnout.

“Turnout was awesome for a runoff election,” Nickerson said. “Some of our precincts had higher numbers for this runoff than they did in November.”

The number of voters was so heavy at one precinct, additional equipment was sent out to make the voting process move quicker, Nickerson said.

There were 35 provisional ballots cast, the vast majority by individuals who voted in a precinct other than their own, Nickerson said.

Two were from voters who did not have proper identification, and another two were cast by voters who said they believed they were registered but did not appear on the voter rolls.

In the latter cases, voters had until 5 p.m. Friday to confirm their identification or eligibility in order to have the votes counted.

The last time a Democrat won a Senate race in the state was in 2000, when former Gov. Zell Miller won a special election to fill the unexpired term of Republican Paul Coverdell, who died while in office. Miller was appointed to Coverdell’s seat before winning that special election.

Prior to that, the last Senate win by a Democrat was Max Cleland, a former Georgia secretary of state, in 1996.

Warnock is the first black senator elected as a Democrat from a former Confederate state since Reconstruction.

With Tuesday’s elections in the rearview mirror, elections officials can relax for a bit. After more than a year that contained a string of contests, including special elections and runoffs for seats in the Georgia General Assembly that began in November 2019, primaries and primary runoffs, and the general election and associated hand audit of votes in the presidential race, only some local races are on the calendar for the remainder of the year.

When those occur, the COVID-19 pandemic will hopefully also be less of a threat than it was during the latest election.

Nickerson said the poll workers who showed up were the heroes of the election. A grant to Dougherty County allowed paying those workers “hazard pay” in addition to the amount they normally would have received.

“We just appreciate the voters who took the time to vote and worked with us in terms of COVID precautions,” Johnson said. “We just want to thank everyone in terms of making it a successful election.”

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