by Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Early voting has become the option of choice for many Georgia voters.
As of 12:30 p.m. Monday, more than 2.7 million voters in the Peach State had cast their ballots during the early voting period that began two weeks ago. Combined with 177,192 absentee ballots, more than 40% of active voters in Georgia already have voted.
That Day 15 early voting total shattered the previous record of nearly 2 million for the same day in the 2018 early voting period. Nearly 1.98 million had voted early by Day 15 in 2020, and more than 1.6 million had cast ballots early by the same day in 2022.
“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday. “Over the past four years, we’ve worked tirelessly to prepare for this election by adding early voting days and investing in infrastructure. … We’re battle tested and ready.”
Statewide, reports of long early voting lines were minimal, although some voters were waiting in line for more than 30 minutes in a few popular voting locations in metro areas.
The early voting period comes to an end this week. The last day for early voting is Friday, four days before Election Day a week from Tuesday.
