Multiple million individuals have already voted in Georgia's 2022 elections, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger introduced Wednesday.
"As of Wednesday morning, Georgia is effectively over the One Million mark with 1,017,732 voters casting their poll throughout Early Voting," mentioned Raffensperger, including, "Georgia has had report Early Voting turnout because the first day of Early Voting this 12 months, surging to almost twice the quantity on the primary day of Early Voting in 2018."
Raffensperger celebrated the milestone on Twitter, congratulating Georgia voters and thanking native election officers.
Raffensperger on Wednesday additionally touted the state's decreased wait occasions at polling areas, crediting a brand new pilot program that goals to streamline the check-in course of.
"Georgia voters are giving their county election administrators an amazing blessing by benefiting from the unprecedented number of Early Voting choices out there to all Georgians," Raffensperger mentioned in a press release. "Lowering the burden on the counties is essential for a protected, safe, and accessible election."
All eyes are on Georgia as voters solid their ballots in two consequential races: the gubernatorial race between the Republican incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams, and the senate race between incumbent Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock and his GOP challenger, Herschel Walker.
Georgia proved an important state in 2020, flipping blue and serving to safe Democrats each the presidency and management of the Senate in tight races. Within the 2020 Senate runoff race, Warnock beat his Republican challenger by simply over 93,000 votes, whereas President Joe Biden received the state by fewer than 12,000 votes towards former President Donald Trump.
In 2021, Georgia's GOP-controlled state legislature handed a 98-page election regulation, which included voting provisions that some, together with Abrams, discovered restrictive. Abrams went even additional, saying that she discovered provisions of the invoice to be racist.
Biden referred to as the laws "an un-American regulation to disclaim individuals the best to vote," including, "That is Jim Crow within the twenty first century."
Whereas the brand new regulation expanded early voting alternatives, it additionally added an ID requirement for absentee voting — a provision that has disproportionately affected voters of coloration — amongst different restrictions.