Early voting up almost 30 percent
By Mike Steely
Senior Writer
steelym@knoxfocus.com
Voting totals are up with 19,900 people casting ballots during the first six days of early voting. As of Thursday, 11,999 people chose the Republican primary and 7,614 chose the Democratic primary. Of those, 1,290 voted absentee and 287 chose to vote in the general election only.
The Downtown West Precinct led with the largest number of voters, followed by Farragut, which also had a mayoral and two aldermen races, New Harvest Park, Karns, Clinton Highway’s Firestone voting location, Halls and South Knoxville. Less than 1,000 people had voted at each of the precincts in Gibbs, Emerald Youth and Carter. The City-County small assembly room saw about 921 voters.
Early voting continues this week and the general election is August 6.
“The contested primaries for governor and contested races for Mayor and other offices are driving turnout to levels Knox County hasn’t seen in quite some time,” Chris Davis, Knox County Election Administrator told The Focus.
“In fact, after five days of early voting, Knox County turnout is up almost 28% from the same election eight years ago (2018). I hope voters continue to take advantage of early voting, which ends Saturday, August 1,” he said.
“Great turnout yesterday,” Davis said, speaking of the 3,792 who voted Thursday.
The election held eight years ago had a primary for governor and the election of a Knox County Mayor along with other officers. So far, this past week’s totals exceeded 2018’s total number of voters in the first six days of early voting.
