Preliminary estimates are that about 9,000 or so Forsyth County voters made it to the polls today for the local elections.  Add this to the 4,000 or so early voters, and the total turnout is a disappointing 18%.    Perhaps adding further frustration will be the fact that the high number of early votes will take extra long to tally, and will be reported in two lump sum phases under the precinct "absentee". 

This block of votes typically takes much longer to count because its a combination of paper ballots and early voting machines, which have been sitting idle since they were shut down on Friday.

According to chief registrar Gary Smith.  They will run the 60 advanced voting machines through the database system last, but they might be able to have paper ballots reported early.  This means the absentee numbers will be reported early, and revised at the end with a lump sum of 4000 advanced votes.

As of 7:45pm no precincts had reported in to the administration building.  Smith estimates the final tally will be online at around 11pm tonight.

You can watch the votes come in as it happens on the Forsyth County Govt Website.  Click HERE