Golden Triangle residents have until noon Saturday to cast in-person absentee ballots at their local circuit clerk’s office.
Officials in Clay, Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties will accommodate last-minute absentee voters at their offices Saturday. Mailed absentee ballots are due at the respective offices by 5 p.m. Monday.
Tuesday’s Democratic and Republican primaries feature a number of county, area legislative and statewide races.
Clerks said absentee turnout was slow earlier this week, but more voters began casting their ballots by Thursday.
In all, clerks estimated about 1,800 absentee ballots have been cast in all three counties.
Lowndes County Circuit Clerk Haley Salazar put Thursday’s unofficial vote tally at about 750 after a Wednesday report showed 699 ballots cast. In Clay County, Circuit Clerk Robert Harrell also confirmed 699 ballots had been cast as of Thursday.
Oktibbeha County has the lowest amount of ballots cast so far. Elections Clerk Sheryl Elmore said only 317 have been counted.
Combined, the three Golden Triangle counties have about 77,000 voters eligible to participate in Tuesday’s primary.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.