KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Thursday was the last day to cast your ballot early in Knoxville’s primary elections.
It was expected to be one of the busiest for early voting, and that turned out to be the case: It was the busiest of the bunch with 1,831 people showing up to the polls.
Clifford Rodgers, Knoxville's administrator of elections, said there are nearly 92,000 active registered voters in the city.
But at the end of Tuesday, early voting numbers were only a little higher than 6,300 votes, although that count didn't include absentee ballots.
“We expect the last two days to be fairly heavy for early voting," Rodgers said. "In other words, maybe we get to 2,000 voters those days. Of course, we would like to see a lot more voters than that."
By the time early voting was over, 10,279 people had cast early ballots -- meeting the goal officials had hoped for.
Election officials are hoping to add 10,000 more on Election Day itself.
The highly-contested race for mayor of Knoxville is on the ballot, along with several other races, including at-large city council seats.
The mayoral race could be decided by the primary election-- if a candidate receives 50% of the vote plus one vote, there will not be a need for a runoff in November.
“It's really kind of sad when I have numbers like this when so many more could vote,” Rodgers said. “These [elections] could be decided differently if more people weighed in.”
If you missed your chance to weigh in during early voting, don't worry. You can still cast your ballot on Election Day, which is Tuesday, Aug. 27.