Candidates Mike Dugan and James Camp were both out shaking hands Friday, trying to drum up public awareness for the upcoming Jan. 8 election. They face multiple competition to their campaigns, including New Year’s doldrums, voter apathy and the big Jan. 7 BCS National Championship football game.

Early voting begins this week for the District 30 state Senate race and early indications are that turnout could be extremely light.

“We’ve had very few requests for absentee ballots and very few calls for information on the election,” Becky Deese, county elections supervisor, said Friday.

Early voting will be held from Wednesday, Jan. 2, through Friday, Jan. 4, during the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. All early voting will be at the county elections office on the lower level of the county services building, 423 College Street, Carrollton.

Deese said all registered voters in Senate District 30, regardless of whether they voted in the past District 30 elections, are eligible to vote. The deadline for registering to vote in this election was Dec. 10.

District 30 includes all precincts in Carroll County except Fairfield, Hulett, Lowell and Whitesburg. Six precincts in Douglas County and four precincts in Paulding County are also part of District 30.

Dugan, a Carrollton building contractor and retired military officer, is facing Libertarian candidate Camp of Temple, an IT technician, in the third and final contest for the Senate seat.

The long path to the state Senate seat began with a Nov. 6 special Republican primary, with four candidates seeking the seat being vacated by Republican Bill Hamrick, who resigned in September to accept a Coweta District Superior Court judgeship. Dugan defeated former state Rep. Bill Hembree of Winston in a Dec. 4 runoff to earn the Republican slot on the Jan. 8 ballot.

As a third-party candidate, Camp qualified early for the Jan. 8 general ballot and did not have to participate in the earlier Republican contest.

Camp is promoting his candidacy as the last barrier to a Republican super majority in the state Senate. He said this District 30 runoff could be the contest that gives the GOP a two-thirds majority.

“When you have a super majority, it takes away the will of the people and replaces it with the will of the party establishment,” he said. “With a super majority, Republicans can push through anything they want and overcome any objections to their party agenda.”

Dugan, a political newcomer, used a “new faces and ideas” platform and grassroots campaigning to defeat Hembree, an 18-year experienced political office holder, in the Dec. 4 runoff.

“If voters want something other than business as usual, I’m offering something different,” Dugan said during his November campaign. “We need to do better in government, to get it back to where it should be, so peoples’ voices are represented.”

If elected,Dugan has pledged to hold regular town hall meetings, work for term limits and put a cap on lobbyist gifts.