Nearly one in five registered voters in the City of Fredericksburg have cast their ballots prior to Election Day.
In an email, City General Registrar Jessica B. Atkinson wrote that 4,080 ballots had been cast as of Saturday morning, out of 20,095 total registered voters. That number includes both in-person and absentee voting.
By comparison, about 3,000 Fredericksburg voters cast early ballots in last year’s election, which included the presidential ticket but no local races.
Friday saw 285 voters cast ballots, and Atkinson wrote that she was aware of four “get out the vote” campaigns planned for the final day of in-person early voting, which began on Sept. 19.
“We expect great turnout today,” wrote Atkinson of Saturday. She noted that poll workers at the FXBG City Center encountered 20 voters in the first 15 minutes after polls opened at 9 a.m.
As of Friday morning, approximately 17,000 had cast early votes in-person in Spotsylvania County, with another 5,104 casting via mail-in ballots. General Registrar Kellie Acors said she’s anticipating the final tally for early-in person voting to be approximately 18,500.
In the 2021 gubernatorial race, 15,145 Spotsylvanians voted early in person. A total of 4,122 voted early by mail.
In Caroline County, General Registrar Rebecca Ryan said early voting so far is also ahead of the 2021 pace. A total of 3,880 voters had cast their ballots early as of Friday morning. Another 855 returned mail-in ballots. In 2021, 2,405 early in-person votes were cast and 795 mail-in ballots were counted.
King George General Registrar Lorrie Gump said 4,289 voters participated in early in-person voting as of Friday morning. Gump said she had processed 657 mail-in ballots. In 2021, 3,959 early in-person votes were cast with 668 mail-ins.
In Stafford County, Anna Hash, director of elections and general registrar, said in-person early voting figures have surpassed those from the most recent gubernatorial election.
“It is up from four years ago — quite a bit,” she said.
As of Friday afternoon, 16,352 Stafford residents had voted early in person, an increase from 2021, when 12,784 total people voted early.
Hash said she wouldn’t be surprised if this year’s in-person early figure hit 18,000.
On Friday alone, she was expecting the total from the day to end up being more than 1,200.
“It has picked up this week,” Hash said of recent voting.
