KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Around a week is left in the Tennessee early voting period, and the Knox County Election Commission said thousands of voters have cast their ballots.
By the end of Oct. 23, election officials said they collected 80,844 early votes. They also collected 5,067 absentee ballots. The most popular early voting location was Downtown West, which collected more than 13,800 votes. The next most popular location was in Farragut and the third most popular was the Knoxville Expo Center. Most voters were from outside Knoxville, living in the county instead of the city.
The Knox County Election Commission said in the 2020 presidential election, only around 65,700 early votes had been cast in the same period. In the presidential election before that, almost 67,000 early votes had been cast.
Around 7,900 first-time voters cast ballots in Knox County over the first few days of early voting. Election officials also said people 55 years old and up comprised the largest portion of voters so far, having cast around 54,000 votes.
People between 18 and 29 years old are the smallest portion of voters so far with around 7,000 votes cast. We went to the University of Tennessee and spoke with some of these Gen Z voters to see what issues they care about most for the upcoming election.
"Universal health care is pretty important to me also decreasing housing costs," said James Cowell, a 23-year-old University of Tennessee student.
"Housing and zoning regulations, environmental justice, abortion, and gun control," said Elena Goss, an 18-year-old student.
Out of the eight Gen-Z students we spoke to, only two did not plan on voting in the upcoming election, and five have already cast their early vote.
As of Thursday, six full days of early voting remain. Voters can expect long lines if they decide to cast ballots early, but even longer lines are expected on Election Day.
The early voting period ends on Oct. 31, before Election Day on Nov. 5. While voters will decide on who they want to see as president of the United States, Knoxville voters will also decide on whether to amend the city charter and change the city's voting style. There are also races for seats in the Tennessee legislature and the United States Congress.
The Knox County Election Commission said there were around 336,000 total registered voters in the county — meaning around 25% of registered voters in Knox County have cast a ballot with around a week left in early voting.
State leaders also said around 1.14 million votes have also been cast across Tennessee — outpacing in-person voting votals for the same period in 2016 by around 33%. A release said around 855,900 votes had been cast at this time in the 2016 election.
A few East Tennessee counties also saw high turnout rates with a week to go of early voting. Loudon County saw a 36% turnout rate, Unicoi County and Cumberland County saw a 30% turnout rate and Roane County saw around a 29% turnout rate — all ranking among the top 10 counties in the state.