Georgia smashes first-day early voting record; no signs of slowing Wednesday

More than 300,000 Georgians cast a ballot Tuesday for the November election, the first day of early voting, doubling the state’s Day 1 record. On Wednesday, there were no signs that the pace was slowing down. More than 88,000 votes had been cast as of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to data from the crucial battleground state.

Gabriel Sterling, a top state elections official, posted on X that the numbers meant “that we will break past the half a million votes cast today. That’s 10% of the turnout we saw in 2020. Big numbers!”

The record probably reflects partisan enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle, though it is unclear from so little data what it means — if anything — for the overall state of the race. The fact that the heavy turnout continued into a second day is more remarkable, according to several political consultants in Georgia.

There may be multiple reasons for the spike. Early voting gives Georgians a chance to avoid the hours-long lines and delayed mail-in ballots that have marred past contests in the state. The 2020 election was conducted near the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and the state sent mail-in ballot applications to every Georgia voter.

The pandemic spurred states to expand access to early voting and absentee-by-mail ballot options for voters looking to stay safe.

That resulted in more than 40 percent of ballots being cast via mail in 2022, The Washington Post has reported, an uptick from 21 percent cast by mail in 2016. Three areas — Nevada, Vermont and Washington, D.C. — later adopted vote by mail permanently. In 2022, most ballots were cast before Election Day in Georgia and fellow southern swing state North Carolina.

Early voting is set to begin Thursday in North Carolina, where people are still missing nearly three weeks after Hurricane Helene ravaged the western part of the state.

Elections officials in the state said two weeks ago that no voting equipment or paper ballots had been destroyed but that multiple polling locations flooded, The Post has reported.

Every vote will matter in North Carolina, where Trump beat Biden by less than 80,000 votes — his smallest margin of victory in any state.

In Georgia, polls show the presidential race is essentially deadlocked.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the state hit the 234,000-ballot mark by 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Republican has been critical of how Democratic areas have run their elections, but he had no complaints Tuesday, tweeting: “Our county election directors are outstanding, and Georgia voters are energized!”

The state’s total for first-day ballots cast in 2020 was about 129,000, the state reported at the time.

Georgia’s elections have been scrutinized since 2020, when Raffensperger became a household name after he rebuffed then-president Donald Trump’s request to “find” enough votes to win the state.

So far in this presidential election, the five core counties of Metro Atlanta — which voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in 2020 — have put up more than a quarter of the in-person early votes.

As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in Fulton County — home to Atlanta and about 10 percent of all Georgia residents — in-person state elections data showed more than 49,000 people had voted at its 37 sites. More than 26,000 people in suburban DeKalb County cast ballots. Another metro Atlanta county, Cobb, had tallied more than 28,000 ballots.

The longest reported voting lines were in Cobb County, where the wait was up to 75 minutes.

But in most places lines dissipated quickly, usually in five to 10 minutes, Sterling said. “It’s like Chick-fil-A. There’s a line, but it moves.”

Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.