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We knew people were going to come out in droves to vote in November’s general election, but we’ve got to admit that we’re even surprised by the early voting numbers this year.

Between all of the early votes and absentee ballots, 8,000 people had already voted in Troup County on Monday. That’s roughly one-fifth of Troup County’s registered voters.

To put that in perspective, there have been times where 20 percent ends up being the voter turnout for an entire election.

We realize that much of the discussion around this election involved the presidential race. Between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it feels like everyone has a strong opinion one way or the other.

For any undecided voters, the final presidential debate will take place Thursday. (And if you didn’t enjoy the first debate, know that this time the ability to mute microphones was approved.)

Further down the ballot, there are also numerous races that impact us locally, and we hope you’ll keep those in mind too. The three commission races, the sheriff race and the state representative seats are important for Troup County, so we hope you’ll do your homework on those candidates before going to cast a ballot.

Elections Supervisor Andrew Harper said there hasn’t been any issues with voting machines so far. That’s obviously good news considering the number of votes already cast.

We are officially less than two weeks until Election Day, which is hard to believe. These final two weeks will fly by, so if you haven’t voted yet, we encourage you to take advantage of the remaining time to do so.

We’re impressed by the voter turnout so far, not only in Troup County but in Georgia as a whole.

We hope that momentum continues all the way through Election Day.