Elections official concerned about voter turnout for July elections

LEE CO., GA (WALB) - Although it's not known yet how many Georgians officially voted in Tuesday's primary, turnout in the region was flat or slightly lower than expected.

Lee County's turnout was 18.25 percent, roughly three percentage points less than the 21 percent turnout in 2014's gubernatorial primary.

Dougherty County unofficial voter turnout was 20.44 percent, about two points less than the 20.72 percent turnout four years ago.

Lee County Election Supervisor Veronica Johnson is concerned about energizing voters to return to the polls for the July runoff.

Johnson said that her team has been handing out election calendars during early and primary day voting, hoping it will encourage people to return for the run-off.

"We want them to come back and vote. We had a lower turn-out than what we wanted, but we don't want to have a bad turn-out for the runoff. So we are encouraging everyone to come back," explained Johnson.

It's not known just how turnout fared statewide.

The Secretary of State's office has not made data available listing the total number of voters that pulled one of the three available ballots, Republican, Democratic or Non-Partisan.

Now that Primary Election Day is over, there are still some major races that remain undecided.

At the top of the ticket is the runoff for the Republican nominee for governor.

The primary is July 24.

Early voting starts July 2.

"We know it is summertime, people will be on vacation. We want to remind them there will be three weeks of advanced voting and they can still request an absentee ballot by mail and still be part of the process," said Johnson.

Although you can't register to vote in a runoff, Johnson said every currently registered voter in Georgia can vote in the primary runoff, even if they missed voting in the primary election on Tuesday.

If you did pick a party ballot in the primary election, you have to vote in that party's runoff.

But, if you voted Non-Partisan, you can choose to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary runoff.

Copyright 2018 WALB. All rights reserved.