National polls show 93 percent of Americans have decided whom they want to be president.

Tennessee voters who are ready to cast their ballot can do so Wednesday. That’s when early voting kicks off in the Volunteer State. Early voting in Georgia began Sept. 22. There is no early voting in Alabama.

Hamilton County voters can cast ballots at three locations: the Hamilton County Election Commission offices on Terminal Road, the Brainerd Recreation Center on North Moore Road and at Northgate Mall near the Piccadilly restaurant.

Early voting ends Oct. 30 , and Election Day is Nov. 4. The new president will be inaugurated Jan. 20, 2009. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are in a tight race for the White House.

Local voters also will find the following races on the ballot: One U.S. Senate seat from Tennessee, the 3rd Congressional District, Tennessee State Senate District 10, Tennessee House of Representatives Districts 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30; District 5 school board special election as well as municipal elections in East Ridge, Lakesite, Red Bank, Signal Mountain, Soddy-Daisey and Walden.

If voter registration has been any indication, poll workers may see a large number of voters beginning on Wednesday.

Bud Knowles, Hamilton County elections administrator, said 9,528 new voters registered in the county between Sept. 1 and Oct. 6 — part of an estimated 14,000 voters that have registered in the county since Jan. 1.

Mr. Knowles said that the last-minute surge of voters is a record for the election commission here.

“It’s the presidential race, of course, which sees tremendous turnout and will set new records in early voting,” he said.

He said on the last day of voter registration, residents “went wild” and flooded the office.

State figures show 19,019 new voters registering in 2008 for Hamilton County. State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said he wasn’t sure why there was a difference between the state’s figures and Hamilton County’s but suggested it might be attributable to coding errors. There are now 205,863 registered voters in the county.

New state registrations are up 361,015 for the year, Mr. Thompson said, bringing the total number of active registrants to 3,591,217.

He said in 2004, the state had more than 1.1 million people vote early.

“We expect that again this time,” Mr. Thompson said, noting, “I think our overall turnout figures are going to be remarkably close to last time.”

That would mean about 2.4 million Tennesseans voting.

Joseph Blass decided whom to vote for months ago, and because he’ll be busy on Election Day, he’s voting early.

“My wife and I always vote early for many reasons,” Mr. Blass said. “I serve as the officer of elections at the DuPont Precinct, and I know that people come in (on Election Day) at 7:30 p.m. and want to vote, but they are at the wrong polling place. Then they only have 30 minutes to get to where they need to go.”

The solution, Mr. Blass said, is to vote early, where there is no time crunch and the three polling places can accommodate voters from any precinct.

Election workers prefer that voters bring in their driver’s license or voter registration card, but there are other acceptable forms of ID, including passports, utility bills or bank statements. Voters should also remember that there are strict rules about campaigning near a polling place, said Charlotte Mullis-Morgan, deputy election superintendent.

She said people are not allowed carry signs within 100 yards of the polling site or to wear campaign shirts, buttons, or stickers. Poll workers are instructed to turn away voters wearing shirts that have campaign images or messages.

“We’ll ask them to turn the shirt inside-out or to leave,” Ms. Mullis-Morgan said.

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