Georgia sees 2nd day of record early voting turnout
Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on October 16, 2024
(GEORGIA) — 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.
“So, with the rest of today and absentees we could get close to 600,000 votes cast in Georgia. We continue on the record-setting pace and we are thankful for our election workers at the counties and our voters,” he said.
On the previous day, 312,206 people cast an early vote, shattering the 136,000 votes cast in the first day of early voting in 2002, according to state election data.
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, 33,359 absentee ballots have been returned and 33,150 of those ballots were accepted, according to the secretary of state’s office.
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.
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