A record number of Georgians voted ahead of Tuesday's presidential election, with 2.38 million early ballots cast as of Friday evening, when early voting ended. But who are these people?
Early voters this fall are more likely to be older and whiter than they were four years ago, when we last voted for president, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the latest data available from the Georgia Secretary of State's Office. Early voting turnout among millennials and Gen-Xers dropped. So did early ballots cast by African-Americans.
Key takeaways from 2016
A smaller percentage of blacks came out to vote early in 2016 — their share among early voters dropped by 5 percentage points from 2012. African-Americans went from making up just under 34 percent of early voters in 2012 down to 28.4 percent this year.
If the slice of the early voting pie for blacks was smaller this election, whose got bigger? Whites made up the largest chunk; they're up 2 percentage points in 2016 to 61 percent. Voters who declined to identify their race or ethnicity increased 1.4 percentage points. Latino voters (up 0.8 percentage points) and Asian voters (up 0.7 percentage points) also got slightly larger slices — it may not seem huge, but both groups doubled the size of their slices between 2012 and now.
Roughly 36 percent of all registered Georgians (some 6.6 million people) have already voted ahead of Election Day. In 2012, the turnout was 32 percent (when there were 6.1 million registered voters). In terms of raw numbers, the sheer number of people choosing to vote early this year went up 24 percent.
Who voted early?
Millennials (ages 18-34) decreased their share of early voting turnout by 1 percentage point from 2012.
GenX voters (ages 35-51) were down 1.4 percentage points.
Baby boomers-plus (52 and older) jumped 2.3 percentage points.
Where do they live?
Rural voters in North Georgia turned out — more than half of eligible voters in Rabun, Towns and Habersham counties have already voted, the top three counties in the state. Forsyth County is No. 5 with 52 percent; and Fayette County came in No. 8 with 48 percent.
Women represented nearly two-thirds of all early voters in Clayton and Dougherty counties (both happen to have among the largest share of female voters in the state). The most male-heavy turnout? Rural Dawson County, where 47 percent of early voters were men.
Counties with the largest percentage of African-American early voters: Clayton, 75 percent; Hancock, 67 percent; and Dougherty, 66 percent.
Largest percentage of Latino voters: Whitfield, 8 percent; Gwinnett, 4 percent; and Hall, just shy of 4 percent.
How does that compare with 2012?
2016 turnout broke records: In terms of raw numbers, rural Chattahoochee County in southwest Georgia had eight times the number of early voters it saw in 2012 (when it had 80). Among metro Atlanta counties, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton and Gwinnett all saw double-digit increases. Rural counties were not outdone, though. In terms of percentages of registered voters who actually cast an early ballot, the largest increases were rural: Wheeler (up 30 percentage points), Lumpkin, Candler, Taylor and Oglethorpe.
Counties where the share of early voting by whites dropped the most: Forsyth, nearly 12 percentage points; Whitfield, nearly 5 points; Rockdale, 4 points; and Gwinnett, 3 points.
Counties where the share of early voting by blacks dropped the most: The top ones are all rural, but DeKalb County — where rolls are now 53 percent black — fell 11 percentage points.
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