Strong Last Day Caps Off Record-Setting Georgia Early Voting Period

October 31st, 2020

DeKalb County voters file into the early voting location in Stonecrest on Friday evening, just minutes before the polls closed.

Emil Moffatt / WABE

Georgia on Friday got a little closer to the 4 million mark in ballots cast in the 2020 general election. The combination of in-person early votes and absentee by mail votes totals 3,876,202 as of late Friday night.

The all-time record for turnout in an election in Georgia is 4.1 million, reached during the 2016 presidential election.

Monae Curb was among the 213,027 voters who cast in-person ballots on Friday. She voted a little before lunchtime at the Douglas County Courthouse.

“Tuesday can be hectic, and it might be a two-hour wait, so I thought this was a better option,” she said.

Douglas County extended its early voting hours by an hour Friday after offering only limited in-person voting Thursday because of power outages caused by Tropical Storm Zeta.

In DeKalb County at a former Sam’s Club building in Stonecrest, voters filed in and out of the early voting location, which passed the 20,000 voter mark on Friday. It was one of three DeKalb County locations to reach the 20,000 mark, along with the Reid H. Cofer Library and the voter registration and elections office on Memorial Drive.

Even with the record early voting and vote-by-mail numbers, elections officials are still expecting between 1.5 and 2 million Georgians to cast ballots on Election Day.

“If you are voting on Tuesday, you will potentially experience lines,” Raffensperger said. “This is the reality when millions of people try to do the same thing at once.”

Voters also have until Tuesday night at 7 p.m. to return absentee ballots.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says he expects between 1.5 to 2 million voters to go to the polls on Tuesday. (Emil Moffatt/WABE)

“As we move toward Tuesday, I want to ask again of those nearly 350,000 Georgians that have their absentee ballot sitting on their kitchen table: please fill them in, drop them in a secure drop box or at your county registrar’s office,” said Raffensperger.

Counties will still have the chance to continue processing absentee ballots over the weekend and on Monday, so the vote total could go up even more prior to polls opening at 7 a.m. on Tuesday.