So far this campaign season, the Covington elections have seen news stories, in-depth video interviews, a forum, numerous campaign signs and candidates going door to door.

Residents either haven’t been impressed enough to vote or they’re still weighing their options leading up to the Nov. 8 election, as only 4.7 percent (301 votes) of active, registered voters in Covington had either cast an early ballot or returned an absentee ballot as of 3:24 p.m. Friday.

Early voting is open one more week until Friday at the Newton County Board of Elections, 1113 Usher St. Results weren’t available Friday for Porterdale, but Social Circle had a total of 16 early votes as of 4:20 p.m., according to the Walton County Board of Elections. Both cities have multiple contested races, while Newborn and Oxford have no contested races, and Mansfield has at least one contested race. Oxford does have a homestead exemption referendum question on its ballot.

The News polled readers to see what form of information most influenced them when choosing a candidate to vote for, and 42 percent of voters said news stories/interviews were the most helpful. Public forums were the next most popular at 33 percent with personal interaction third at 19 percent.

The News and Covington-Newton Chamber of Commerce previously chose to cancel their planned forum because the full slate of candidates was not expected to attend.

The News emailed several questions to the four East Ward council candidates and the two mayoral candidates Wednesday evening and set a deadline of 5 p.m. Monday for responses. A story detailing candidates’ answers will follow next week.

There are several previous stories at covnews.com, including stories about recent forums and candidates from all the cities, as well as in-depth video interviews with Covington mayoral candidates Ronnie Johnston and Bobby Sigman.