Georgia Voters Break Voting Record on First Day of Early Voting – WABE

This story was updated at 4:12 p.m

Georgia voters broke the record for the number of ballots cast on the first day of early voting.

As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, Georgia voters had already broken the previous record of 136,000 ballots cast on the first day of early voting in 2020, according to Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State Office.

According to Sterling and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia voters cast 251,899 ballots as of 4 p.m., surpassing all records for any day of early voting in 2022.

Georgians can vote in person at several early voting locations in their counties from Tuesday through November 1st. Metro Atlanta residents can find a map of all early voting locations in each county here.

Theresa Renfro voted early at the County Line-Ellenwood Library, a branch of the DeKalb County Public Library. She said she won’t be here on Election Day, so she wants to make sure she has a chance to vote.

“I’m nervous about the 5th that something might snap, so I said I’d come and vote early so I know for sure my vote counts and there won’t be any disruptions,” Renfro said.

Raffensperger said during a news conference Tuesday that early voting began on time in all counties, adding that absentee voting began on time.

He also noted that some counties have changed their early voting locations and encouraged people to check their My Voter page to make sure they are aware of the times and locations.

“We have a great story to tell here in Georgia,” Raffensperger said. “Everything we have done since 2019 is to improve the process, build trust and increase your confidence in the election cycle.”

His office accomplished this, among other things, he said, by conducting an audit of voter rolls to ensure only American citizens were registered to vote, banning ballot harvesting – when someone other than the voter returns a mail-in ballot – and have the opportunity to achieve this with a watermarked paper ballot.

Raffensperger also said Georgia has the “cleanest, most accurate voter roll in the country,” working with other states and the Department of Driver Services to ensure voters leaving Georgia are removed from the voter rolls.

He added that the state will again conduct parallel surveillance on Election Day by checking any device to ensure it is working properly and not being hacked. The office will also recount each race based on the human-readable text on the ballots.

Raffensperger said his office wants to ensure lines last less than an hour.

“Ultimately, half of you will like these results and half of you won’t. But let’s enjoy the process,” he said. “So it’s going to be free, it’s going to be fair and it’s going to be fast, and we think that’s really important.”

According to Blake Evans, elections director in the Secretary of State’s Office, the state has implemented electronic poll books that allow voters to register at a polling place, so the average check-in time for a single voter is about 57 seconds.

This is a developing story.

WABE’s Rahul Bali contributed to this story.