When polls closed across Georgia this evening, it drew to a close three weeks of record-breaking early voting.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office says the state was on track to exceed 2.4 million votes by this evening. As of Friday morning, 2,056,545 Georgia voters had already cast their ballot during early voting
Georgia has had record early turnout since polls opened on October 17. By this point in the 2018 midterms, only 1.6 million voters had cast ballots.
Turnout in Northeast Georgia kept pace with the rest of the state and in Rabun, exceeded expectations with a 47.85% voter turnout. Towns County is the only county in Northeast Georgia to record higher early voter turnout this year, at 48%.
Local election officials have already begun processing absentee mail-in ballots, but state law prohibits them from tabulating the votes until Election Day.
While absentee in-person voting has risen significantly this year, absentee voting by mail is down from 2020 when it reached its height due to the pandemic. As of November 3, Georgia election officials say 204,549 of the 285,577 absentee mail-in ballots that were issued have been returned. Statewide, 1,564 absentee ballots have been rejected. Election officials say those voters will be given an opportunity to correct any discrepancies.
“71.6% of issued absentee ballots have already been returned to county election offices, which will reduce the election day burden on county election offices,” the secretary of state’s office says.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. statewide on election day. Now Habersham will bring you the local and statewide results as they’re reported.
