By Eleanor Boudreau
Memphis, TN – After 10 days of early voting 57,509 people have turned out to vote in Shelby County. That's about 10 percent of the 602,793 registered voters in the county.
White people are overrepresented in early voting. About half of the people who have voted so far (but only 30 percent of registered voters) are white.
More women have voted than men--54 percent of voters so far were women.
Election Day is November 2nd. The next governor of Tennessee will be chosen that day as well as who will represent Tennessee's 7th, hotly contested 8th, and 9th Districts (the three districts that run into Shelby County) in Congress.
Also on the ballot is the issue of whether Memphis and Shelby County governments will merge. The Shelby County Election Commission will count the votes on consolidation inside the City of Memphis and outside the city limits separately, but it will not certify the results until a federal court rules on a lawsuit challenging whether such a split vote is legal.
The last day of early voting is Thursday, October 28th.