Early voters continued their surge at the polls this week, with more than 1 million people casting votes in person by Friday afternoon.

By 4:30 p.m. Friday, the Secretary of State’s Office reported over 1.16 million Georgians — 16.1% of the state’s active voters — had voted in person or by mail. Less than 1% of those votes — about 61,417 — were accepted mail-in ballots, reflecting the shift in more people preferring to vote early in person.

“This is a strong turnout,” Charles Bullock III, a University of Georgia political science professor and authority on Georgia politics, told State Affairs. “What we’re seeing here is a broader pattern of what we’ve seen in other states, and that is, as people either experience early voting or become aware of it, they like it.” 

State election data showed the largest voter turnout in the first four days of early voting this week was in metro Atlanta, Savannah and Macon. Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous county and home to the state Capitol, had recorded 128,168 voters by 4:30 Friday. Some counties in northwest and southwest Georgia posted turnout rates of 17% and higher.

“While older white women are leading the packs to the polls, it certainly doesn’t mean most of them are going to be voting for Kamala Harris.”

Georgians broke first-day early-voting records this week when more than 306,000 voters cast their votes in person on Tuesday. The turnout set the highest one-day record in a presidential year in Georgia, state election officials said. 

State election data, along with information from Georgia Votes, provided a snapshot of this week’s early voters. Georgia Votes, which analyzes state election data, is run by Atlanta political enthusiast Ryan Andrew.

Here’s a breakdown of early voter numbers so far:

• About 700,000 White voters and over 300,000 Black voters cast ballots this week, according to the state’s data hub as of 4:30 p.m. Friday. 
• Women outpaced men, 54.9% to 44.8%.
• Voters between the ages of 65 and 69 accounted for the largest single group of early voters. Over 169,600 cast votes, accounting for 30% of voter turnout. Older voters in general dominated. More than 700,000 between the ages of 65 and 99 cast ballots.
• Those between the ages of 18 and 24 — the state’s largest bloc of registered voters — posted the lowest turnout percentage-wise this week: 55,278 voted, or 5.7% of total turnout. 
• Over 10,300 voters between the ages of 90 and 99 cast ballots in person or by mail. 
• Roughly 5% of the votes expected to be cast in this year’s election will be mail-in ballots, secretary of state spokesman Mike Hassinger said. About 26% of the ballots cast during the 2020 election were mail-in, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
• On Tuesday, 313,351 Georgians voted in person. Another 279,057 voted Wednesday and 258,554 voted Thursday, secretary of state data shows. As of Friday at 4:30, 247,407 voted in person Friday, putting this week’s total at 1.1 million.

While early voting is still in the early stages, political observers are starting to look for the trends.

“Older voters, male, female, whatever, are less likely to vote Democratic than younger voters,” Bullock said. “So while older white women are leading the packs to the polls, it certainly doesn’t mean most of them are going to be voting for Kamala Harris. They will do so more likely than their older white male husbands will. We do know that. Women are more inclined to vote Democratic than men are. But the older they are, the more likely they are Republican.”

Could the 2024 turnout exceed that of 2020, which saw 5 million Georgians cast votes?

“We do have roughly a million more people who are registered to vote today than we did four years ago,” Bullock said. “Yeah, so I think we may eclipse that 5 million voter turnout figure.”

Keep track of early voting in Georgia here and here.

Have questions? Contact Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].

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