October 13th, 2020

(Atlanta) – On its first day of early voting, Georgia saw record in-person turnout. In-person turnout for the November election surged more than 40 percent above the previous record set on the first day of in-person voting ahead of the 2016 November elections.

“Record early, in-person voting capped off an already unprecedented election cycle,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “On our successful first day of early in person voting, we saw almost 130,000 people cast their ballots, mirroring the enthusiasm surges we saw in almost every other state that has started early voting for November. With three weeks of early-person voting; absentee ballots that can be returned by drop box, by mail, or in person to an elections registrar; and Election Day voting, Georgia provides plenty of opportunities for Georgia voters to participate in the democratic process.”

128,590 Georgians cast ballots in-person on the first day of early in-person voting for the November 2020 general election. This represents a 42% increase over the 90,688 voters who cast a ballot in-person on the first day of early, in-person voting during the November 2016 elections, the last record first day of early in-person voting.

So far, county elections officials around the state have accepted 1,581,365 absentee ballot requests from Georgia voters. 473,812 of those absentee ballots by mail have already been returned and accepted by county elections officials. Only 90 absentee ballots by mail have been rejected for an unprecedented 0.019% absentee ballot rejection rate.

Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record primary turnout in 2020, with over 1.1 million absentee by mail voters and over 1.2 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.

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Contact the Elections Division

Address

2 MLK Jr. Drive
Suite 802 Floyd West Tower
Atlanta, Georgia 30334