Two Georgia counties with almost the same number of registered voters are taking very different approaches to advance voting this fall.
Lowndes County, with about 84,000 registered voters, is opening one advance-voting site for the Nov. 3 election.
Walton County, with about 85,000 registered voters, is opening three.
That difference is deliberate.
Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox told PeachPol the county has chosen to concentrate advance voting in a larger location rather than spread voters across multiple sites.
“One location is easier to manage and control than multiple locations,” Cox said. “Bigger, not more.”
Walton County made the opposite choice.
Joyce Chambers, vice chairman of the county elections board, said Walton expanded from one advance-voting site to three after the 2020 election. The county added locations on its west and south sides, she said, to shorten the distance some residents had to travel.
The expansion also shifted some voting away from Election Day, Chambers said, allowing the county to reduce its Election Day precincts from 21 to 15.
Advance voting in Georgia begins Tuesday.
The two counties illustrate a broader feature of Georgia elections: once counties meet state requirements, local election officials have wide latitude over how advance voting is structured.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office said counties “run elections and each county is different,” adding that local officials have “tremendous discretion” over voting dates, times and the number of locations.
That discretion has produced sharp differences in the amount of scheduled advance-voting opportunity available across the state, even among counties with nearly identical numbers of registered voters, according to a PeachPol analysis of advance-voting schedules for the Nov. 3 election.
PeachPol identified complete, usable advance-voting schedules for 155 of Georgia’s 159 counties and compared those schedules with county voter-registration totals as of Sept. 15.
See methodology below.
To account for the difference in size between Georgia counties, PeachPol calculated the number of scheduled site-hours available for every 100,000 registered voters. That measure combines the number of locations with the number of hours they are scheduled to be open.
It is a measure of scheduled voting opportunity — not a score of how easy or difficult it is to vote.
The differences appear striking among counties with similar voter rolls.
Barrow County has 70,911 registered voters. Floyd County has 70,358.
Barrow plans to operate one advance-voting site for a total of 142 site-hours, or about 200 hours per 100,000 registered voters.
Floyd plans to operate two sites for a combined 300 hours, or about 426 hours per 100,000 voters.
Barrow County Elections Director Monica Franklin said officials consider historical turnout, voter demand, staffing and equipment needs, facility availability, accessibility and the overall administration of the election when setting the county’s schedule.
Barrow is using the same location and hours it used in 2024.
“We continually monitor voter turnout and wait times throughout Advance Voting,” Franklin said, adding that officials can move staff and equipment if demand is heavier than expected.
Floyd County officials did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
An even wider gap appears between Dougherty and Glynn counties.
Dougherty has 66,595 registered voters and is scheduled to operate one advance-voting site for 136 total hours — about 204 site-hours per 100,000 registered voters.
Glynn, with 69,348 registered voters, is opening three sites. Together, they are scheduled for 447 site-hours, or about 645 hours per 100,000 voters.
Glynn County Assistant Elections Director Christina Redden said the county has long opened all three locations for countywide general elections and plans for at least 60% of its voters to cast ballots before Election Day.
The county also extended weekday voting by 30 minutes this year, keeping locations open until 5:30 p.m.
Redden said past turnout data showed why.
“Data collected in the past showed that when extended voting hours were available, that first half hour after 5:00 p.m. had the highest turnout and justified the decision,” she said.
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Dougherty County officials did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
The comparison between Rockdale and Jackson counties shows why simply counting locations can be misleading.
Both counties have about 71,000 registered voters.
Rockdale is opening one advance-voting site. Jackson is opening three.
But once the schedules are factored in, the difference is much smaller than the site count suggests.
Rockdale is scheduled to provide about 215 site-hours per 100,000 registered voters. Jackson is scheduled to provide about 290.
Jackson County Elections Director Jennifer Logan told PeachPol the county emphasizes consistency.
“We provide what the law requires,” Logan said. “It doesn’t change depending on election. We stay consistent for our voters as to not cause confusion.”
Rockdale County officials did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
The Lowndes-Walton comparison brings the discretion counties have into especially sharp focus.
Their voter rolls differ by fewer than 1,400 people, but their schedules look very different.
Lowndes is scheduled for 194 total advance-voting site-hours, or about 231 hours per 100,000 registered voters.
Walton is scheduled for 456 total site-hours, or about 535 hours per 100,000 voters.
Lowndes also offers Sunday voting, while Walton does not.
Cox said Lowndes moved advance voting into a larger location because of the practice’s popularity. For Lowndes, one larger location made more sense than multiple smaller ones.
Walton reached a different conclusion.
Chambers said the county’s geography and population centers pushed officials toward a three-site model designed to shorten travel for voters in different parts of the county.
Walton’s board also added an extra hour during the final week of advance voting at all three sites this year, she said, in anticipation of strong turnout.
The choices made in Lowndes, Walton, Barrow, Floyd, Dougherty, Glynn, Rockdale and Jackson do not by themselves show how long any voter will wait, how far someone must travel or whether a county will ultimately have enough workers and machines to handle turnout.
They do show something more basic: counties serving similarly sized electorates can offer substantially different amounts of scheduled advance-voting opportunity.
And in Georgia, that variation is not necessarily the result of a statewide formula.
It is often the result of local decisions.
Methodology box: How PeachPol measured advance-voting opportunity
PeachPol analyzed staffed, in-person advance-voting schedules for the Nov. 3, 2026 general election in Georgia.
The analysis used schedules posted by the Georgia Secretary of State and county election offices. PeachPol matched those schedules with county voter-registration totals as of Sept. 15, 2026.
The final dataset contains complete, usable schedules for 155 of Georgia’s 159 counties and 334 unique staffed advance-voting locations.
PeachPol’s primary comparison is site-hours per 100,000 registered voters. Site-hours are calculated by adding the number of hours each staffed advance-voting location is scheduled to be open. Dividing that total by the county’s number of registered voters allows counties of different sizes to be compared more meaningfully.
PeachPol also calculated potential registered voters per staffed site and the number of staffed sites per 100,000 registered voters.
Dropbox-only locations were excluded because they are not staffed in-person voting sites.
Repeated records at the same physical address were reviewed and consolidated when they represented the same voting location.
Counties without a complete, usable schedule were treated as missing data, not as having zero advance-voting sites or hours.
The analysis measures scheduled voting opportunity, not overall voting access. It does not account for travel distance, public transportation, population density, staffing levels, voting machines, expected turnout, actual wait times or whether voters live near county borders.
PeachPol used registered voters — both active and inactive — as the denominator because both categories remain registered voters.
The data was frozen on Oct. 9, 2026.
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