Turnout on first day of Georgia early voting breaks midterm record

ATLANTA — The first day of early voting in Georgia set a new midterm turnout record, with nearly 123,000 in-person voters casting their ballots, an early sign of strong interest in this year’s elections.

Turnout on Monday far exceeded the last midterms in 2018, when about 71,000 people showed up at the start of early voting, according to state election data.

The fast start put Georgia on pace to surpass the 3.9 million voters who cast ballots four years ago, though turnout appears unlikely to reach the 5 million voters who participated in the 2020 presidential election.

In-person early voting is the most popular method of casting a ballot in Georgia, with voting locations open for three weeks before Election Day, including two Saturdays. Some counties also offer Sunday voting hours.

Following political campaigns and voter mobilization efforts, Black voters especially turned out on Monday.

Black voters accounted for about 39% of Georgia’s early voters, higher than their 29% of the state’s registered voters, according to an analysis of election data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. About 49% of early voters were white, while Hispanic and Asian voters made up about 1% of turnout each. About 9% of voters didn’t provide their race or chose “other” when they registered to vote.

Turnout in midterm elections, with races for governor and U.S. Senate on the ballot this year, is always lower than national elections for president. In the 2020 election, about 68% of Georgia’s voting eligible population participated, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida. Turnout was 54% of the eligible population in 2018.

Absentee ballots were also beginning to be returned after they began to be mailed to voters last week. About 11,000 absentee ballots had been returned through Monday out of 218,000 requested.