Records are made to be broken and as of Tuesday evening the amount of early ballots accepted in the state of Georgia has reached all new high. And counting.
Record-setting numbers
There have been more than 1 million votes cast in the state through eight days of early voting, according to data from the Secretary of State’s Office. That amount of votes is moving closer and closer to the previous record of early votes that were cast in Georgia in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election. It has already eclipsed 2020 midterm election numbers.
“It really shows you that people are excited and really turning out,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last week during a phone interview with The Atlanta Voice. “When we set up SB 202 people said it would hurt voting.”
Where are the votes coming from
That million-plus vote count is largely coming from the five largest counties in the state. Fulton County is currently leading the way with 133,703 ballots cast through Tuesday, according to the Secretary of State’s Office data hub. There have been just over 15,000 votes through Tuesday. DeKalb County has accepted 86,727 early votes (9,000-plus this week), and Cobb County and Gwinnett County are nearing the 80,000 mark with 77,875 and 72,665 early votes cast, respectively.
South of Atlanta, both Clayton and Henry counties have seen an uptick in early voting as well. Clayton County has 27,897 and Henry County has 27,536 early votes cast. Smaller counties with what can be considered major voting precinct targets for candidates like Fayette County (Fayetteville, Peachtree City) and Chatham County (Savannah) have also seen strong early voter turnouts. There have been 21,606 early votes cast in Chatham County and 17,875 early votes cast in Fayette County.
Democratic Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock has held campaign rallies in both counties as recently as Monday.