Early voting for the February 5th 2008 Presidential Preference and Knox County Primary elections begins one week from today on Wednesday, January 16th and continues through Friday, January 31st.

There are new locations, and there will be extra locations and extended hours for the last three days. More details after the jump. A flyer from the Knox County Election Commission is attached [1].

Say, did you notice there is a Knox County Primary? There are 73 candidates for 19 different offices, including Sheriff, Trustee, County Clerk, Register of Deeds, Property Assessor, County Law Director, and Criminal Court Judge Div. II.

There are also School Board candidates in districts 2, 3, 5, and 8, and County Commission candidates for 1-A, 2-B, 4-A, 4-B, 5-C, 6-A, 8-B, and 9-A.

Turnout is expected to be high, possibly a record, so vote early and vote often!

The News Sentinel is profiling the candidates in a series of articles such as this one today [2]. Unfortunately, they are not organized into one place that I can find on their website. If it's there, they've made it impossible to find (for me anyway). They have a few candidate videos loosely organized here [3].

Just like the rest of the media, the News Sentinel is focused on the Presidential primaries, which are front page news while local candidates are B3 material. They have a "Voice of the Voters" feature in which they are following nine local voters with videos and forums, which is pretty useless and boring if you ask me. (I know. Nobody asked me.)

We encourage the News Sentinel to focus more on the unprecedented (partly because of the KNS lawsuit) local races and give voters a place for one stop shopping. We get all the presidential primary news we need from the AP wires that are available anywhere on the internet or by watching any random five minutes of CNN or MSNBC.

UPDATE: I'm told there will be a local Election Guide coming out this Sunday. If you don't already subscribe, it might be a good idea to pick up a paper at the news stand.

Anyway, early voting details and a list of Knox County primary candidates after the jump...

Early Voting Sites:

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. (closed Sundays)
January 16 - 31, 2008

Any qualified Knox County voter can vote early for the Tuesday, February 5, 2008 Presidential Preference and Knox County Primary Election at any early voting site:

• Knox County Courthouse, Room 218, 300 Main Street

• Five Points Village Plaza Shopping Center, 2364 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue

• East Town Crossing Shopping Center, 4738 Center Line Drive, near Home Depot

• Halls Recreation Center, 6933 Recreation Lane, off Crippen Road

• 235 W. Young High Pike, next to Wood Realtors

• Downtown West Shopping Center, 1645 Downtown West Boulevard, Suite 29

• Farragut Town Hall, 11408 Municipal Court Drive

• The Silo (Northshore/Pellissippi Parkway area), 9409 S. Northshore Drive

Early Voting Sites for the last 3 days:

Extended Hours 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

• UT Center - Main Floor, 1502 W. Cumberland Avenue

• Powell Library, 330 W. Emory Road