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Almost 2,500 voters mailed in ballots

COLUMBUS—Polk County had record numbers this year with early voting and mail-in ballots, totaling 60 percent of its registered voters prior to Election Day Tuesday. 

The county had already seen a little over 60 percent of its registered voters before Tuesday with 9,694 votes cast early. Polk has 16,135 registered voters. 

Polk voters mailed in 2,497 votes and had 7,197 people vote in-person at the board of elections office early. 

Early one-stop voting ended on Saturday with polls open for Election Day on Tuesday. 

Most of the early voters were registered Unaffiliated at 3,573 of the total early votes. Republicans were close behind at 3,495 of the early votes, followed by Democrats at 2,575 of the early votes. Libertarians had 35 early votes, Constitution Party had 9 votes and Green Party had 7 early votes in Polk County. 

Tryon is the county’s largest precinct and voted the most early at 1,977, followed by Columbus 2 with 1,924 early votes. Columbus 1 had 1,526 early votes; Green Creek had 1,495; White Oak had 988; Saluda had 894 and Coopers Gap had 889. 

Most of the early voters were female at 5,184, with 4,167 males voting early and 343 undesignated. 

The majority of Polk County’s early voters were white, at 8,625. There were 605 undesignated early voters; 347 African American early voters; 60 other; 27 of two or more races; 22 Asian and 8 Native American.