Early voting has ended for the Chattanooga city election, with a last-day surge bumping polling numbers up a little higher than they were four years ago. But the slightly increased turnout hasn’t discouraged any of the candidate campaigns from knocking on doors, taking donations, buying advertisements or putting up yard signs until the very end.
This year, the combined totals for early voting and mail-in ballots for the Chattanooga mayoral and City Council election reached 7,678. In 2013, early voting totals topped out at 7,320, including 51 mail-in ballots received between the end of early voting and Election Day. Unlike 2013, 2017 did not experience a two-day surge just before early voting ended.
On Thursday, Hamilton County Elections Administrator Kerry Steelman said in an email that Wednesday’s nasty weather affected early voter turnout.
“Turnout was lower than usual on Wednesday; however, the typical rush on the last day of early voting has increased exponentially, as those who stayed in yesterday are making their way to the polls before early voting ends this evening,” Steelman said.
Steelman was on the money. The last day’s surge hit 1,118 votes, including 19 mail-in ballots. That topped the 882 votes cast on the last day of 2013’s early voting by 306 votes, or 34 percent. The surge easily doubled the daily average of votes cast on the preceding 13 days of early voting.