(GA Recorder) — A busy early voting period wrapped up Friday with more than 1.8 million Georgians having cast in-person votes in the runoff pitting Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock against Republican Herschel Walker.
A large turnout is also expected at the polls Tuesday as Georgia voters have their last opportunity to settle a high-stakes election that is far outperforming turnout in runoffs in 2016 and 2018 but lags behind a pair of Senate runoffs in January 2021 when more than 1 million absentee ballot votes spurred Democratic challengers Warnock and Jon Ossoff to upsets over Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Some counties opened early voting sites a few days before Thanksgiving, but the numbers began to soar over the holiday weekend when the Georgia Supreme Court allowed voting on Saturday and continued through the week in Georgia’s 159 counties. Most polls suggest the race is a dead heat.
Under Georgia’s 2021 state election law, county officials were legally only required to offer one week of advanced voting for the runoff. In contrast, the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff was held two months after the general election, offering three weeks of early voting and many more opportunities to turn in absentee ballots.
While the early voting period for the Nov. 8 general election came off with few reports of long lines across Georgia, the abbreviated runoff window saw long lines at the polls in the heavily populated metro Atlanta area and other population centers in the state.
MORE: Habersham, Rabun, Towns among top 10 counties with highest early turnout
Before voters head to their designated polling place on Tuesday, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger suggests checking online for wait times. A number of counties post that information, including Cobb, Clayton, Forsyth, Richmond, Gwinnett, Fulton, and DeKalb. Georgians can find their designated precinct location and find other voting information on the Secretary of State’s My Voter Page.
“Georgia’s voting system is working well,” Raffensperger said. “While some Counties are seeing more voter turnout than they anticipated, most have found a way to manage voter wait times, and I appreciate the election officials and workers across Georgia who are doing their level best to accommodate our record turnout.”
On Thursday night, Warnock and Walker wound down their bitter and expensive campaigns with large crowds attending rallies that featured prominent party figures.
Warnock’s re-election bid received a second visit to Atlanta within several weeks from former President Barack Obama, while Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham attended a Woodstock rally on Walker’s behalf.
Obama and the senator from South Carolina noted the significance of races, even if it no longer determines the balance of power in Congress. With Warnock’s victory, Democrats would hold 51 Senate seats, allowing them more leeway in close votes on legislation and also preventing Republicans from securing a filibuster-proof majority in the next election cycle.
Graham noted that a 50-50 split means Senate committees are evenly divided.
“If it’s 51-49, they have one more vote on every committee than us,” he said on Thursday.
“The bottom line is it really changes the structure of the Senate, but it’s not about 51 it’s about (Walker). They dropped $170 million on this guy’s head. This is the nastiest campaign I’ve seen in my entire life.”
Aside from some extended wait times, there are also issues cropping up again over absentee ballots and vote tabulation, both issues unresolved from the 2020 presidential election. There were rampant, unfounded allegations that massive voter fraud cost Republican Donald Trump the presidency to Joe Biden. The fallout led Georgia’s GOP lawmakers to reshape the election rules by tightening deadlines for absentee ballots, banning around-the-clock absentee drop boxes, and requiring more timely election results reporting.
Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia continued their legal fight against the Cobb County Board of Elections for failing to mail out ballots to more than 1,000 voters for the second time this election cycle.
This follows earlier legal action just one month ago when Cobb County had failed to send absentee ballots to voters for the general election.
