Ware County’s Board of Elections and Registration has voted to hold a Saturday session for the early voting period for the General Election Runoff between U.S. Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.
Elections Supervisor Carlos Nelson said the board voted Monday for the weekend opportunity following a ruling Friday by a Fulton County Superior Court judge that holding early voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day is legal.
Nelson said the elections office at 408 Tebeau Street will accept early voters from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, November 26. The judge’s ruling left the decision on beginning early voting that day instead of Monday, November 28, to each county’s election officials.
Ware is the only area county that will accept voting Saturday a check with election offices in Brantley, Pierce and Bacon revealed.
The judge’s ruling came after Warnock’s campaign filed a lawsuit seeking reversal of the decision of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office that declared that holding early voting that day would violate a state law that prohibits runoffs on any day immediately following a state holiday. Besides Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 24, the following day also is a state holiday.
Raffensperger’s office has appealed the judge’s decision to the state’s appellate court.
“We’ll see what happens with (appeal), but right now, we’ll be here Saturday,” Nelson said.
If the Saturday vote is conducted, it will be followed by weekday voting next week through Friday, December 2. Hours in Ware County will be from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Nelson said there will be 11 voting stations available during the early period in an effort to make the process as efficient as possible.
“Voting should go pretty quickly,” he said
The race between Warnock, the Democrat incumbent, and Walker, his Republican challenger, is the lone item on the local ballot. Neither candidate received a majority of the votes during the General Election on Tuesday, November 8, with Warnock garnering 49.4 percent of the vote to Walker’s 48.5 percent.
The runoff will be staged from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 6 at the county’s 11 voting precincts.
For more information, call the elections office at (912) 287-4363 or visit My Voter Page at mvp.sos.ga.gov or visit the Ware County Board of Elections website at www.wareelections.com.
