By: Isabelle Puente
Early voting for the 2026 State and Federal Primary and County Elections ended Saturday, August 1. Voting will be held at assigned precincts – 8 a.m. – 7 p.m., Thursday, August 6.
Proof of ID required – you can bring your Driver’s License, Passport, Gun Permit, or Military ID.
Madison County elections include County Mayor, County Commissioner, General Sessions Judge Div.1 and Sheriff.
Voters will also have the opportunity to cast their ballot for state level elected officials including Governor, Senator and Representative.
Since 1996, Madison County’s voter turnout for primary elections has been below 50 percent.
This percentage covers both state and local elections. The question is though, why are Madison County residents not voting in their local elections?
Lori Lott, Madison County Administrator of Elections, shared her thoughts on why these numbers are so low.
“It makes no sense to me, in Tennessee we actually have so many opportunities to vote, 14 reasons why we can vote by mail … we have two weeks of early voting” Lott said. “And in this cycle there (were) three Saturdays (and) we extended our hours on Tuesday until 6 p.m., and then we have a long election date 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., so honestly there’s really no reason someone doesn’t have that opportunity to vote.”
According to Lott, this year’s early voting turnout has been better compared to 2022 with a total of 8,170 votes wherein 2022, the total for early votes was 6,572.
However, Lott said that the numbers this year are still not as high as previous years where they’ve hit 9,000.
Madison County currently has 61,948 registered voters. While we might not see all those voters at the polls, every vote still counts and matters.
If you’re not sure where your voting precinct is for August 6 elections, you can go to madisoncountytn.gov and search for your assigned precinct. You can also use the GoVoteTN app to find your poll location as well as ballot information for Democratic and Republican Primaries and General Elections.
(PHOTO: Lori Lott)
