One day of Saturday voting is this weekend

The Grady County Courthouse will be open Saturday for voters to cast early ballots in the 2020 Presidential Preference Primary.

For those interested in voting this weekend, the courthouse will be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Voters are reminded to access the courthouse from the North door, on the side nearest Roddenbery Memorial Library.

As of the end of business Tuesday, 120 democratic ballots had been cast and 167 republicans had voted, which is unusual since there is no contested race on the republican ballot.

Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld is challenging President Donald J. Trump for the republican nomination, but some states, including Georgia, are not giving voters a choice. Only Trump’s name appears on republican ballots.

On the flip side, the democratic ballot includes names of candidates who have dropped out of the race since the ballots were prepared. A total of 12 candidates for the democratic nomination for president appear on the ballot, but as of Tuesday, the only candidates who actually remain in the race are former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, and U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

The names of Michael Bennett, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar, Deval Patrick, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang also appear on the ballot, but they have all suspended their campaigns for the democratic nomination.

Voters sign in with poll workers in the courthouse lobby, then vote in one of the rooms on the first floor occupied by the Board of Registrars before completing the process by inserting their ballots into a scanner, which is in the main first-floor hallway of the courthouse.

The new voting machines print out a paper copy of the voter’s ballot that they can inspect to insure accuracy before placing it in the scanner to be recorded and tabulated with all other votes. Poll workers are available to assist any voter who has questions or concerns about using the new voting system.

Early voting runs through Friday, March 20, at 4:30 p.m. Election day for the presidential preference primary is Tuesday, March 24, and the county’s 13 polling places will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.