Early voting hits near 4M mark in Georgia

Early voters queue up in Rabun County, Ga. (Credit: David Spears)

Nov 02, 2024
Key Points
  • Georgia early voters match 2020 early turnout
  • Nearly 4 million Georgians voted in person or by mail
  • The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 5

Nearly 4 million Georgians — more than half of the state’s active voters — had cast ballots in person or by mail by Friday evening, the last day of three weeks of early voting. About 4 million Georgians voted early in 2020. 

State election officials headed off another outside attempt to disrupt voting procedures this week. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger disavowed a video purporting to show an immigrant holding multiple Georgia ID cards while claiming to have voted multiple times.

“This false ad is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen this election,” Raffensperger said. “It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election.”

The general election is Tuesday.

Here are early voting highlights as of 8:30 p.m. Friday:

  • Over 3.75 million Georgians voted in person while 241,833 mail-in ballots were accepted. Mail-ins accounted for about 3.3% of the total votes.
  • Women continued to outpace men, 56% to 44%.
  • Voters in the northeastern part of the state continued to lead the turnout. Seven in 10 voters cast ballots in Towns County, a predominately white, heavily Republican community in the Blue Ridge Mountains bordering North Carolina. At 72%, Towns led the state in turnout. Neighboring Rabun County followed with a 68.2% turnout.
  •  Nearly 7 in 10 voters between the ages of 60 and 64 turned out to vote, making them the largest age group to vote.
  • Roughly 2.2 million — 6 in 10 — white voters turned out. Just over 1 million — roughly half of — Black voters had cast ballots either in person or by mail.
  • Nearly 4 in 10 voters — 525,256 — between the ages of 18 and 29 cast ballots. Nearly a third of centenarians, those 100 years old or older, voted.

Though state election data gives a breakdown by age, gender and ethnic background, it doesn’t indicate how Georgians voted politically.

Learn more about Georgia’s early voting patterns here and here.

Important election dates to remember

  • Nov. 5: General election and deadline for mail-in (absentee) ballots to be returned
  • Nov. 25-27: Advance voting for general runoff election
  • Dec. 3: General election runoff

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

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