Slightly less than 11 percent (10.9 percent) of Covington’s registered voters have already filled out their ballots for the 2015 city council elections.

Early voting ended Friday, October 30 with a total of 534 of the 5,773 city of Covington registered voters voting in person and 73 of the 98 mailed ballots returned , as of Monday afternoon, for three city council seats.

The polls are open today from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. at Covington City Hall for the municipal election and at regular precincts for voters in state Senate District 43. There are plenty of reasons to vote, here they are.

There are two seats up for election in Covington’s east ward. Eric Threets is running against incumbent Michael Whatley and Josh McKelvey is running against incumbent Keith Dalton. There were 335 votes cast in person and 34 by mail for those council seats during early voting.

There is one seat up for election in Covington’s west ward with 199 votes have been cast in person and 39 mailed-in ballots received during early voting. Kenneth Morgan is running against incumbent Janet Goodman.

The last time these three city council seats were up for election in 2011, there were 477 early votes cast in person and 54 by mail. On Election Day, Nov. 8, 2011, there were 833 votes cast out of the 6,372 registered voters.

There are eight candidates for the Senate special election: Diane Adoma, Tonya Anderson, Marcus Jordan, William “Bill” Kennedy, Angela Moore, Sharon Sawyer, JaNice VanNess and Stan Williams.

The Senate candidates are vying for the seat vacated by Ronald Ramsey, who was serving his fifth term, before being appointed as an associate judge in the DeKalb County’s new traffic court earlier this year.

During early voting in the district for the special election, 809 votes have been cast in person and 40 received through mail.