Early voting record broken in DeKalb
Far more people voted early in DeKalb County this year than ever before.
A total of 179,438 DeKalb voters cast ballots at 10 early voting sites, shattering the previous high of 150,897 set in 2008.
In addition, another 13,677 absentee-by-mail ballots have been returned to the county so far.
Across Georgia, early voting took off this year. About 2.38 million people have already voted statewide, breaking the record of 2.13 million set in 2008, according to Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
Early voting could lead to high overall turnout numbers by the time all votes are counted.
About 73 percent of active DeKalb voters participated in the 2012 presidential election, and 78 percent voted in 2008.
There are 419,396 active voters and a total of 518,947 total registered voters in DeKalb.
About the Author
Mark Niesse is an enterprise reporter and covers elections and Georgia government for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is considered an expert on elections and voting. Before joining the AJC, he worked for The Associated Press in Atlanta, Honolulu and Montgomery, Alabama. He also reported for The Daily Report and The Santiago Times in Chile.
