Voting for the Aug. 21 runoff election continues this week at five polling locations.

More than 560 people voted Monday, officials said. And as of Tuesday afternoon, another nearly 290 people had cast a ballot.

“It will increase as it goes through the week,” said Forsyth County Elections Supervisor Barbara Luth.

“The candidates are getting the voters to come out. That’s going to be important for the candidates to get their people out to vote for them in the runoff, and they’re out there campaigning and trying to get that done.”

The runoff ballot includes four Republican contests, including the race for the District 9 U.S. House seat between Doug Collins and Martha Zoller.

District 4 County Commissioner Patrick Bell faces a challenge from Cindy Jones Mills, who received the most votes of five candidates in the July 31 Republican primary.

The sheriff’s race is also on the ballot. Ted Paxton, the incumbent and top vote-getter in the three-man primary, faces Duane K. Piper, a former longtime employee of the agency.

The fourth runoff contest is for county coroner and features Harold Bennett and Mary Beth Pais.

Those who voted a Republican ballot in the primary are eligible to vote in the runoff, Luth has said, since all the races on the Aug. 21 ballot are for that party.

Anyone who took a nonpartisan ballot or did not vote also can take part.

Voting slowed Saturday after a strong opening start a day earlier, Luth said.

Nearly 200 people cast a ballot Friday, but fewer than 130 came to the county’s administration building Saturday to vote.

Luth said the Saturday voting came so quickly after the primary that “people might not have thought that we were open.”