‘Record-Setting Pace’: More Than 600,000 Ballots Cast in Georgia Early

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‘We are thankful for our election workers at the counties and our voters,’ says a Georgia election official.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office said Thursday that residents are casting early voting ballots in record numbers for the 2024 election, noting that more than 600,000 early and mail-in votes were confirmed as of Wednesday.

“We are approaching 590,000 early votes cast [with] 34,272 accepted absentees,” wrote Gabriel Sterling, chief operations officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State, on social media platform X.

With 620,000 votes cast in Georgia, the state has an 8.6 voter turnout so far, said Sterling, describing those figures as “massive numbers.”

“We continue on the record setting pace and we are thankful for our election workers at the counties and our voters,” Sterling wrote in a separate comment on X.

Sterling did not provide a breakdown by party, age, race, or other voter data. However, the University of Florida’s Election Lab, which provided similar figures to Sterling’s data, shows that the vast majority of early voters are aged 41 and older.

More than 44 percent are aged 65 or older, 41.2 percent are aged 41–65, 10.3 percent are 26–40, and 4.1 percent are aged 18–25, according to the election tracker website.

About 54 percent who have voted early are female and 44 percent male, with another 1 percent marked as “unknown,” the election website shows. Around 58 percent are white, 28.6 percent are black, 2 percent are Hispanic, 1.8 percent are Asian, 0.4 percent are Native American, and 9.3 percent are unknown, other, or multiple.

“For those that claimed Georgia election laws were Jim Crow 2.0 and those that say democracy is dying … the voters of Georgia would like to have a word. Over 300,000 votes cast today,” Sterling wrote in a separate post. “That’s 123 percent higher than the old record for the 1st day. Great job counties & voters.”

He was likely referring to a 2021 law that cleared the state Legislature and was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp that mandated voter identification for absentee ballots, drop box security, mandatory early voting dates, and other provisions.

The law drew pushback from Democrats, with President Joe Biden claiming the measure harks back to Jim Crow-era laws that enforced racial segregation. Some major corporations, including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, offered critical public comments about the measure after it was signed more than three years ago.

Georgia is considered a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, with polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s candidate, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, in a tight race in the Peach State.

In 2020, Georgia election officials certified the race in favor of then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden over then-President Trump by a narrow 11,779-vote margin. Like in 2020, Georgia will provide the state’s winner with 16 electoral votes for the 2024 election.

Trump, meanwhile, was declared the winner by Georgia election officials in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by 211,141 votes.

An aggregate of recent Georgia polls shows that Trump is leading Harris 48.7 percent to 47.8 percent, respectively. However, the most recent poll, a Quinnipiac University survey, shows Trump ahead by a 6-point margin in the state.

Georgia Judges Issue Election Rulings

The early election data update comes as Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled Wednesday that Georgia’s State Election Board had no authority to implement seven new rules that target election certification, absentee ballots, and vote counting.

His order voided the seven challenged rules, finding that they violated state law, the Georgia Constitution, and the U.S. Constitution.

Earlier in the week, another Fulton County judge issued a ruling that Georgia county election officials have to certify election results by the statutory deadline regardless of whether there are suspected irregularities or fraud.

“No election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his opinion.