News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Some Upper Cumberland election offices are experiencing packed lobbies and lines of voters in the first few days of early voting.
Putnam County Election Commission Administrator Michelle Honeycutt said more than 1,400 voters cast ballots on day one. Honeycutt said the turnout well exceeded the previous record of 1,200 voters set in 2020.
“We knew 2020 we were slammed the entire time,” Honeycutt said. “70 percent voted in the entire election and most of them voted early. We voted almost 20,000 four years ago in early voting, so we thought it might be a little bit more and so far it has been.”
Honeycutt said so far each day numbers have jumped up by around 200 voters from previous records. Pickett County Administrator of Elections Tim Clark said he is seeing similar results as 500 voters have already decided to cast their vote early.
“That’s actually a little bit more than what we thought,” Clark said. “We are actually up seven percent from four years ago. We set a new record on our first day of early voting we had 318 which was an all-time record or single-day record for early voting.”
Clark and Honeycutt both said they have received an all-time high in registered voters. Honeycutt said voting registration and early voting are at an all-time high in Putnam County due to more people moving to the area.
“The county is growing so much,” Honeycutt said. “For the last two months, we have been getting so many online voter registrations. We had a few nights you know, it’s 400 a night and we couldn’t hardly catch up so we have been working very hard to get these people registered. Right now we have them all registered.”
Clark said he believes the voting turnout has increased due to the importance of the election.
“Historically the presidential race has always been a high turnout,” Clark said. “I think that just gets the voters out because it is an important race and on top of that we have the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and some Tennessee Offices.”
Honeycutt and Clark both said they have seen the first bulk of early voting so far in the early days of voting. Clark and Honeycutt both said towards the end of early voting they expect to see another wave of early voters.
“The first few days of early voting and then the last few days of early voting are usually when the biggest turnout is,” Clark said.
“Usually the last three or four days are the busiest because everyone puts it off,” Honeycutt said.
Both Pickett and Putnam County election offices will be open on Saturdays to allow those who can’t vote during the week to have an opportunity. Clark and Honeycutt said they expect the large increases to slow down over the next few days but are still optimistic about setting a new total early voter turnout record once the early voting is completed on October 31.
