Early voting under way in most counties

The telephones in DeKalb County’s elections office started ringing Thursday morning with voters eager to cast their ballots in the presidential election.

It was 47 days before election day, Nov. 4.

That persuaded Linda Latimore, director of voter registration and elections, to start early voting early.

DeKalb, like most of the state, had planned to start the early voting — once called absentee voting — on Monday. Instead, voters in DeKalb cast the first ballots at noon on Thursday and 50 people voted by the end of the day.

On Friday, people were waiting before the doors opened at the office on Memorial Drive. At least 125 early ballots were cast that day.

The Rev. Stafford J. Wicker of Antioch AME Church in Stone Mountain went to DeKalb’s office late Friday afternoon with his wife and two daughters.

One was home from college and the other was voting for the first time so they made it a “family affair. I just could not wait to vote in this historic election,” he said.

This is the first election that people can vote early without giving a reason. Federal law mandates that ballots be made available at least 45 days before the election. That’s Monday.

• See locations below.

Election officials hope the early birds keep coming. Officials expect turnout to hit 90 percent in some counties.

“It shows people are really interested in voting and, hopefully, saying they will take advantage of absentee voting,” Latimore said.

In Cobb County, more 200 had voted by noon.

Fulton County starts early voting Monday. By Friday, the office had received 7,000 applications for mail-in ballots.

“It’s twice as may as 2004 up to this point,” said spokesman Mark Henderson. “We know that were going to get a ton of absentee voter applications and voter registration applications in the next two weeks. This week has been our biggest week yet.”

People also were waiting outside the door when the Forsyth County election office opened Friday. By the end of the day, 64 had voted.

Elections chief Gary Smith said he was surprised by the strong showing Friday. “But I think it’s maybe a precursor to what we’re all going to see.”

State and local officials have distributed flyers, posters and letters alerting people to changes in the law that allow early voting.

In Forsyth, notices were included in water bills. Cobb handed out reminders at a local election on Tuesday.

DeKalb is leaving flyers in public buildings, writing people older than 75 and those who have not voted recently, and contacting neighborhood associations.

One of the flyers includes a picture of a line of people stretching across a parking lot and around a church in the distance. People are holding umbrellas and some brought chairs. A warning is printed across the photo: On election day 2008 don’t let this happen to you.”

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Absentee voting locations in metro Atlanta include:

Cobb County

Monday-Friday

8 a.m.-5 p.m.

736 Whitlock Ave.

Marietta

(770) 528-2581

DeKalb County

Monday-Friday

8 a.m.-7 p.m.

4380 Memorial Drive, suite 300

Decatur

404-298-4020

Fulton County

Monday-Friday

8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

141 Pryor St. SW

Atlanta

5600 Stonewalltel Road

Atlanta

or

7741 Roswell Road

Atlanta

404-612-7020

Gwinnett County

Monday-Friday

9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

455 Grayson Highway, Suite 200