http://www.thecitizennews.com/...p-01_86%20Fayette.html
i'm proud of my county.. 86% turnout.. thats great..Nearly one-fourth of all votes cast by Fayette County voters in last week?s General Election were made even before the polls opened on election day, as residents led the state in turnout rate.
For every 100 persons registered in Fayette to vote, county officials said, 86 cast ballots, a rate that may be unsurpassed in the nation.
Fayette County Elections Superintendent Carolyn Combs said records show that 7,600 voters ended up casting ballots through early voting in the week before Nov. 2.
Additionally, about 5,000 more voters cast their ballots either through the mail or by absentee voting.
All total, 12,812 people voted by one of those advance methods, Combs said, out of a total of 52,661 votes cast.
Not surprisingly, Fayette County?s largely conservative electorate showed overwhelming support in reelecting President Bush to a second term.
They also voted in large numbers to support an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as the union between a man and woman. The so-called ?gay marriage ban? was approved by 78.36 percent of local voters.
Fayette County also supported another amemendent to give the state Supreme Court jurisdiction in some federal cases by 66.04 percent.
The huge numbers of early voters is credited with making waits minimal and lines move quickly on election day, one of the smoothest in memory even though turnout was a record.
?We were very pleased,? said Combs. ?We did so many with early voting, that eliminated much of wait at the precincts.?
The only reports of lines came in the early morning hours, as voters stopped by to cast their ballots on the way to work last Tuesday, Combs said. In the evening, most every one of Fayette?s 36 polling places closed on time with few people still in line to vote.
Ironically, the longest lines to vote during the election were probably to be found in the week before Nov. 2, when some 7,600 people voted in advance at the Fayette County Elections Office.
?But even then, we were working people through them in an hour,? said Combs.
Of Fayette?s 61,041 registered voters, 52,661 ended up casting ballots in this year?s election ? for a turnout of 86.27 percent.
Those it was unconfirmed, Combs and others believe that figure would give Fayette County the highest voter turnout in the state ? and possibly the nation.
In the 2000 Presidential election, Fayette County also recorded the state?s highest voter turnout.
More telling, perhaps, is the number of potential voters who cast ballots in Fayette. Of the county?s voting age population of 18 years and older, some 81 percent participated in the process in 2004, the highest in the metro Atlanta area. By comparison, just 43 percent of Clayton County?s eligible voters cast ballots last week.
Of no surprise to anyone was Fayette County?s overwhelming show of support for Republican candidates.
Of Fayette?s 36 precincts, 34 went for President Bush, in most cases by wide margins. Only two precincts with large numbers of minority voters ? Kenwood and Europe ? went with Kerry.
In Fayette County, Bush received 37,322 votes, or 70.9 percent, to Democrat John Kerry?s 14,862 votes, or 28.7 percent.
And so it went for Republicans on down the ballot. None of the candidates running for local Fayette County offices had a Democrat challenger.
And even those Democrats running for state offices who ended up winning their races lost in Fayette County, where the Republican candidates carried the day.
State Rep. Virgil Fludd, who lives in Tyrone, was reelected to his second two-year term in the Legislature, even though Fayette County voters overwhelmingly went with his Republican challenger, Sam Ring.
In Fayette, Ring got 71 percent of the vote to Fludd?s 28.97 percent, but when precincts in Fludd?s District 66 in South Fulton County were counted, Fludd was reelected with 66 percent of the vote.
Similarly, Republican Emory Wilkerson faired well in Fayette, drawing 62.71 percent of the vote for the state House 74 seat. But voters in the Clayton County portion of the district backed his Democratic challenger, Roberta Abdul-Salaam who received 60 percent of the vote total.
And in the race for state Senate District 34, Democrat Valencia Seay was returned to office with 69 percent of the vote. Her GOP opponent, Edith Marie Mullin, won Fayette County with 64 percent.
Republican winners who won solidly in Fayette County included Johnny Isakson in the race for U.S. Senate from Georgia (70.67 percent); Robert Baker for Public Service Commission (70.16 percent); and Lynn Westmoreland for U.S. Congress in Georgia?s 8th District (77.66 percent).
In the nonpartisan race for the Georgia Court of Appeals, Fayette went with Howard Mead, with 40.09 percent.
But that wasn?t enough to put Mead over the top. He got 39 percent of the vote statewide, to opponent Debra Bernes? 42 percent.
The two will meet again in a runoff on Nov. 23, the Tuesday of Thanksgiving, as the only race on the ballot.
Elections officials expect the turnout to be light.
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