After two days of early voting in Georgia, half a million people had already cast their ballots, according to data from the state’s election office.
At the close of the day Wednesday, 269,696 votes had been cast at early voting, according to the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. In total more than 581,000 in-person early votes had been cast, according to the data.
People make a line to vote at a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Oct. 16, 2024.
Megan Varner/Reuters
Gabriel Sterling, the Chief Operations Officer of Georgia’s office of Secretary of State, noted in a statement on X that early votes cast Wednesday set a record for a second day.
“We are approaching 590,000 early votes cast. 34,272 accepted absentees. We are at nearly 620,000 total votes cast. So we are already at 8.6% turnout. Again…massive numbers,” he said in another X post.
On the previous day, 312,206 people cast an early vote, shattering the 136,000 votes cast on the first day of early voting in 2002, according to state election data.
A sign sits outside of a polling location as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Oct. 16, 2024.
Megan Varner/Reuters
Sterling said earlier in the day that the 500,000 votes cast mark represented 10% of the turnout in the 2020 election.
As of Wednesday night, 34,496 absentee ballots have been returned and 34,272 of those ballots were accepted, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Voters visit a polling station, as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Oct. 16, 2024.
Megan Varner/Reuters
Georgia is seen as a crucial swing state for the presidential race, with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been actively campaigning throughout neighborhoods in the state.
Voting rights advocates have been pushing voters to choose the early voting option due to concerns about new rules including one that makes it harder to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if a voter is sent to the wrong polling place. Georgia voters can choose any early voting election site in their county, according to state law.
Early voting in Georgia will continue until Nov. 1.