Early voting in Gwinnett for Senate runoff off to a big start

Through the first three days of early voting, 48,589 Gwinnett voters had cast their ballots in person for the runoff, according to county data.

Gwinnett County Elections Supervisor Zach Manifold said he expects the daily numbers this week to be even higher. On Monday, he projected Gwinnett will see somewhere between 18,000 and 20,000 runoff ballots cast each day this week.

“That’s about what we expected,” Manifold said. “We figure we had about 170,000 vote (in) advance over 19 days in the general and we had almost the exact same number vote in the 2021 runoff (during) advance — 170,000 appears to be about the number of Gwinnett voters who really like that advance voting option.

“So, when you take 170,000 voters and divide them out over a week, that’s more than 20,000 a day. Those are going to be very heavy numbers all week.”

Last week, Gwinnett County opted to offer seven days of early voting ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff between U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Republican candidate Herschel Walker. Friday will be the final day of advance in-person voting.

While some counties opted to only open some of their early voting locations on a limited schedule for Saturday and Sunday voting, Gwinnett’s elections board chose to operate all of the county’s 11 early voting sites on a 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. schedule for every day of advance in-person voting.

Due to the shorter window for advance in-person voting and the traditionally high demand for that option, the county did make some adjustments to move people through the check-in process. That process has been what is creating the long lines since voters only have one race to vote in once they get to a voting machine.

“This is all different (in the elections headquarters lobby),” Manifold said. “We usually have them queued here and have three lines inside. We moved the line a little bit more to the outside and we’ve opened up more (ballot) issuing stations.

“So, we have four more issuing stations. We usually have six issuing stations here at the office, but now we have 10 and it’s mainly because the hardest thing is going to be checking in voters. That’s where the bottleneck is.”

At 10:30 a.m. on Monday, county officials were reporting that the polling location at the elections headquarters in Lawrenceville had the longest wait time in the county at one hour and 15 minutes.

The wait times on Monday morning were about half an hour at the Mountain Park Activity Building, Shorty Howell Park Activity Building and the Pinckneyville Community Recreation Center.

Meanwhile, six other polling locations had wait times ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. There was no wait reported at the Hudgens Center for the Arts at the Gas South district.

Manifold does expect a higher election day turnout this year due to the shorter early voting window for the runoff.

“Well more than 100,000 are going to vote advance in-person and that probably means we’ll see more on election day than we usually do just because we’ve gone from that 19 days (normally offered for early voting) to seven,” he said.

Manifold said the elections headquarters, George Pierce Park, Lenora Park and Bogan Park polling sites have been the busiest in the county over the first three days of advance in-person voting for the runoff.

“This is going be a busy week, that’s for sure,” he said.

The elections supervisor did issue a warning that wait times of at least 30 minutes could be expected throughout the week. Wait times for each early voting site can be found by visiting www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/Alert.

Manifold did offer some advice for voters who are looking to have the shortest wait possible.

“The hardest time to come is always at lunch,” he said. “The lunchtime crowd always gets a little bigger, and then I would say first thing in the morning and then after 6 p.m. — except for probably Friday — (is the lightest). The last hour slows down so people can usually come in with very little wait.”

Gwinnett County’s advance in-person voting locations include:

♦ Gwinnett Voter Registrations and Elections Beauty P. Baldwin Building, 455 Grayson Highway in Lawrenceville

♦ Bogan Park Community Recreation Center, 2723 North Bogan Road in Buford

♦ Dacula Park Activity Building, 2735 Old Auburn Avenue in Dacula

♦ Gas South — Hudgens Center for Arts, 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway Building 300 in Duluth

♦ George Pierce Park Community Recreation Center, 55 Buford Highway in Suwanee

♦ Lenora Park Gym 4515 Lenora Church Road in Snellville

♦ Lucky Shoals Park Community Recreation Center, 4651 Britt Road in Norcross

♦ Mountain Park Activity Building, 1063 Rockbridge Road in Stone Mountain

♦ Pinckneyville Park Community Recreation Center, 4650 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Berkeley Lake

♦ Rhodes Jordan Park Community Recreation Center, 100 E Crogan St. in Lawrenceville

♦ Shorty Howell Park Activity Building, 2750 Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth

The early voting sites which have absentee ballot drop boxes include: Gwinnett Voter Registrations and Elections Beauty P. Baldwin Building; Dacula Park Activity Building; George Pierce Park Community Recreation Center; Lenora Park Gym, Lucky Shoals Park Community Recreation Center; and Pinckneyville Park Community Recreation Center.