Early in-person voting begins Dec. 14.

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  • The early in-person period to vote in Georgia's runoff elections begins Dec. 14.
    The early in-person period to vote in Georgia's runoff elections begins Dec. 14.
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    The registration deadline to be eligible to cast a ballot in the runoffs for Georgia's two U.S. Senate seats is fast approaching.

    Georgia and Stephens County residents must be registered by 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 7 to cast a ballot in the races that pit incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.

    The ballot also features the race of incumbent appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler against Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.

    If you are already registered, you don't have to re-register for the runoffs.

    Georgia's runoffs will determine which party obtains the majority of seats in the U.S. Senate.

    Early in-person voting will begin Monday, Dec. 14, at the historic courthouse in Toccoa. It will be held between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

    In the Nov. 3 General Election, Perdue, with 2,462,617 votes received more votes statewide than Ossoff, but failed to receive more than 50 percent resulting in the runoff.
    Ossoff had 2,374,519 votes statewide.
    In Stephens County, Perdue received 9,353 votes while Ossoff had 2,187 votes.

    In the General Election, Warnock received more votes statewide than Loeffler.
    The secretary of state's office reports that Warnock received 1,617,035 votes compared to Loeffler's 1,273,214 votes.
    However, with 20 candidates in total competing for Loeffler's seat, Republican candidates statewide received in total more votes than Democrats – 2,426,120 to 2,377,798
    Independent candidates in the race for Loeffler's seat received 59,205 votes statewide, Green Party received 15,293 votes, and Libertarian received 35,431 votes.

    Loeffler also lost in Stephens County, but not to Warnock.
    Doug Collins received the most votes in Stephens County with 6,652 votes while Loeffler received 2,126 votes, and Warnock received 1,144 votes.

    Early in-person voting for the two runoff races concludes on Thursday, Dec. 31.
    Polls will be closed on Dec. 24, Dec. 25, and Jan. 1 for the holidays, said Stephens County chief voting registrar and elections superintendent Eureka Gober.
    There also is no Saturday scheduled that early in-person polls will be open for the runoffs.

    Gober said a recount of the ballots in the General Election presidential race pitting incumbent Republican Donald Trump against Democrat president-elect Joe Biden was completed Tuesday, Dec. 1, afternoon and showed no change in the counts.
 

   The recount was requested by Trump.

   It was the third time ballots have been counted in the presidential race with Biden receiving more than 13,000 votes than Trump statewide in the General Election while Biden's lead was reduce to 12,670 votes in an audit ordered by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
    Trump easily defeated Biden in Stephens County, receiving 78.82 percent of the ballots with 9,369 for Trump and 2,385 for Biden.