Georgia will be a patchwork of alcohol laws. In Atlanta, Savannah and most other urban areas, alcohol will be sold on Sundays, beginning as soon as Nov. 20. But in at least 21 other, mostly rural, towns and counties, the law will stay as it has since the late 19th century.

That is a compromise that both sides agree is probably best for an issue where views differ so starkly. “It’s hard to argue with people who just want to vote, even when you disagree with what they want to vote for,” said Jerry Luquire, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition.

Religiously motivated blue laws were once common across the Bible Belt. But over the decades, they have been struck down as anachronistic or unfriendly to business. Georgia was the last Southern bastion of a statewide all-day ban on Sunday alcohol sales in package or grocery stories. (Indiana and Connecticut also still have such laws.)

Nowhere was the resistance to Sunday alcohol sales stronger than in Elbert, according to an analysis by the Georgia Food Industry Association. Nearly 70 percent of the 2,400 people who voted in the county supported keeping the law.