Finalized Votes Show 33,000 Putnam Voters Participated

Election numbers for Putnam County have been finalized with about 33,000 total votes.

That is a 70 percent turnout for the county. Election Administrator Michele Honeycutt said this is the highest turnout she has seen while serving as administrator.

“Four years ago in the same type of election, our total counted of everything was 27,565. Close to 6,000 on that,” Honeycutt said. “Two years ago, but that would have been a governor election. We voted 24,594. I think this is the most we have ever voted.”

About 2,500 of those votes were absentee ballots with 19,000 people voting early. Honeycutt said she thanks the extra poll workers for making this election possible.

“It went really well. Of course, we had a lot of extra workers, so that helped with early voting and everything that we were doing here,” Honeycutt said. “The only issue I think we really had was on Election Day. It seemed like most of the public showed up at 9:00 o’clock. So from 9:00 to about 11:30 it was busy at every precinct, so some of the phone calls were not getting into us.”

Honeycutt said majority of voters followed election guidelines. Masks were required and political clothing was not permitted at polling sites.

“I appreciate must of the public wearing a mask if they came in,” Honeycutt said. “Most of them did not wear political clothing, and when we told them they were not allowed to, it was not an issue.”

Seventy percent voted for President Donald Trump with 27 percent for President Elect Joe Biden.