Gwinnett’s county seat is embracing “Souls to the Polls” this year with the Lawrenceville City Council voting Thursday to approve Sunday voting for this fall’s municipal election.
Gwinnett County has already embraced Sunday voting for county elections and offered it on both Sundays during the early voting periods during the 2020 election cycle, but its cities had previously not moved in the same direction.
Lawrenceville will be one of the first Gwinnett cities, if not the first city, to offer Sunday voting for municipal election early voting.
The early voting period for the Nov. 2 municipal election in Lawrenceville will begin Oct. 12 and end on Oct. 29. Voting will take place each day from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Lawrenceville City Hall, which is located at 70 S. Clayton St.
Under the state’s controversial election reform bill that was signed into law earlier this year, early voting had to be offered on two Saturdays during the advance voting period, but counties and cities had the option to decide on their own whether to do Sunday voting as well.
Two City Council seats are on the ballot in Lawrenceville this year, with qualifying set to take place from Aug. 16 until Aug. 18. One of those seats is the Post 3 seat currently held by Councilman Bob Clark and the other is the Post 4 seat that Councilman Keith Roches currently holds.
Roche announced earlier this summer that he will not seek re-election, leading to an open race for his seat. Austin Thompson, who has served on the city’s Downtown Architectural Review Board and “Move Lawrenceville Forward” Steering Committee, and who finished second in the voting for the Post 1 seat in 2019, has already announced plans to run for Clark’s seat.
Candidates will go to the City Clerk’s Office at City Hall to file qualifying paperwork for the election. The qualifying fee to run for a council seat is $306, and candidates must be a registered voter and have lived in the city limits since at least Nov. 2, 2020.
