Voters gathered at the Athens-Clarke County Library to cast their votes prior to Election Day. Athens residents were able to start voting early on Oct. 13 for the upcoming midterms on Nov. 3.
The Five Points neighborhood is the largest registered neighborhood in Athens, producing 44% of the voters in the 14 neighborhoods and historic districts analyzed by students for Grady Newsource.
In Five Points, 4,896 residents are registered voters, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State. As of March 2026, population estimates from the U.S. Census indicate that 46% of the Five Points population was not registered to vote.
On Election Day, voting will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Individual polling locations can be found on https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/.
Josh Brooks, University of Georgia athletic director and a Five Points resident, voted early Thursday at the Athens-Clarke County Library. He said he has voted at the location multiple times and always finds it quick and easy to cast his vote.
“I feel like earlier in my life, when you vote day of, you’d be stuck in line for an hour, 45 minutes,” Brooks said. “But being able to come here on a lunch break and knock it out, literally 10 minutes, makes it super convenient.”
Zane Watkins, an Athens resident, also voted early and in person Thursday at the Athens-Clarke County Library. Watkins also appreciated the early voting process, which he described as a quick and painless.
“Voting is so easy, they make it so easy, and this is typically where I always go and vote. So, I mean, they always do an amazing job here,” Watkins said.
As of Oct. 29, 22,602 votes have already been cast early and in person in Clarke County, according to the Secretary of State’s Election Data Hub website.
The registered voters within Athens have differing reasons for choosing to vote early, but there was a shared focus on how pivotal participation is for them.
Watkins chooses to vote early because of convenience and his commitment to inciting change.
“I think just to be able to do your civic duty, and if you don’t see a change or think a change is needed, you probably are not gonna have a motivation to get out there and do anything,” Watkins said.
Five Points resident Joe Frierson said his vote was to help ensure there was an improvement in the government.
“I think it’s extremely important. We have a ‘jillion’ morons in politics, and we need less of them,” Frierson said.
This spotlight on helping insight change was a common sentiment across the early voting polls.
“The change is needed, and I just wanted to make sure that I got out here and did my part,” Watkins said.
In 2022, 20,138 Athens residents voted early. 3,676 more residents have voted early both by mail and in person for the upcoming midterms in comparison to the 2022 election, according to the Secretary of State website.
TJ Stephens also contributed to this reporting.
Editor’s Note: A surge in advance voting, more than 2.45 million in-person voters as of Oct. 30, 2026, broke previous Georgia records for midterm elections. Reporting II students examined voter registration files and advance voting data for the 2026 midterm elections from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office for Athens-Clarke County to produce a series of stories in a project led by Lori Johnston, journalism senior lecturer, and Mark Niesse, Fink Visiting Professional, a former voting and democracy reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who now is a freelancer for the AJC, Capitol Beat and PeachPol.
