Early voters statewide may be on track to set a record, but along the Grand Strand, the numbers are about normal, elections officials said.
Midday Monday, Donna Mahn, the Georgetown County elections supervisor, said her office had received about 3,000 requests for absentee ballots to be mailed-in or used in her office.
"In 2008, we had more than 5,400," she said. For a midterm election, 3,000 absentee votes is a typical number, she said.
As of late last week, about 127,000 South Carolina voters had been sent absentee ballots - far more than the then-record of 76,000 early voters in 2006, the last time the state elected a governor.
In Horry County, elections leaders said the number of absentee votes is up slightly more than expected, but not much.
Elections Supervisor Sandy Martin said her office had seen 6,249 absentee voters as of mid-Monday. Early voting ended at 5 p.m. Monday, and mail-in absentee ballots must be received at the elections office by 7 p.m. today to be counted.
"I think a lot more people are choosing to vote absentee - especially if they are 65 or older - to avoid the long lines at the polls," Martin said.
She and Mahn offered another strategy for avoiding those lines on Election Day: Don't go to the polls first thing in the morning, at lunch or just before closing time.
S.C. polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., but Mahn said people will do better at missing the lines if they go in the hours between opening and lunch, and between the end of the lunch hour and the post-work rush.
Polls in North Carolina are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
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