The opportunity to vote early for the Aug. 2 election has came and went, but the numbers across the state show many people didn’t waste that opportunity.
Weakley County’s number of early votes cast surpassed that of people who voted in the August 2008 election. During the early voting period this year, 890 ballots were cast in the county. Of those, 536 Republicans cast a vote and 354 Democratic votes were cast.
In 2008, the number of early voters in the August 2008 election was only 234. The total number of votes cast for the August County General Election and State and Federal Primaries was 746. There are close to 19,000 registered voters in the county.
The county was in line with the state as Tennessee boasted a record-number of early votes cast this year.
Total numbers as of Monday show 326,876 ballots have already been cast for the Aug. 2 election.
State totals show Republican ballots taking the lead at 214,333 and Democratic ballots at 98,875.
For comparison, 206,174 Tennesseans voted during the entire early voting period in August 2008. There were 11,267 people who voted absentee by mail in that election.
Voters still have a chance to cast a ballot on Election Day Aug. 2.
“I commend all of those Tennesseans for exercising their right to vote and I encourage all other eligible voters to either cast ballots early or come to the polls on Election Day,” Secretary of State Tre Hargett said.
With voter turnout statistics, it is important to compare elections with the same races on the ballot.
For example, the November presidential election is expected to have substantially higher turnout.
Also, August elections held during presidential off-years, which include higher profile races for county mayor and sheriff, tend to have higher turnouts than August county elections during presidential years.
Voters are reminded to bring a state- or federally-issued photo ID to vote.
A voter who does not present a state- or federally-issued photo ID at the polls will not be turned away, but will receive a provisional ballot.
However, the voter will need to return to the election commission office within two business days after the election and present a state- or federally-issued photo ID in order for the provisional ballot to be counted.
Examples of acceptable forms of ID, whether current or expired, include driver licenses, U.S. passports, Department of Safety photo ID cards, U.S. military photo IDs and other state or federal government photo ID cards. College student IDs are not acceptable. Nowhere in the photo ID law is a city or county ID listed as an example of an acceptable ID.
 For more information, visit www.GoVoteTN.com, or call 364-5564.

WCP 7.31.12