Georgia voters are showing no signs of slowing down since the November presidential election.
With two U.S. Senate seats and control of the legislative body up for grabs in the Jan. 5 runoff election, Georgians are eager to have their say. So far, more than 2.8 million people have voted, according to an analysis of data from the secretary of state’s office.
After a Christmas break, the number of early votes has resumed a pace close to the presidential election. More than 234,000 Georgians voted on Wednesday, which is the high mark for the runoff early voting period. In the November election about 5 million Georgians voted. Here’s how the early votes break down.
Most voters are voting in-person, but mail voting remains popular. About 890,000 people have cast mail ballots, which is 32% of the early vote. About 351,000 requested mail ballots have not been returned.
About 56% of early voters are white and 31% are Black, which is a slightly higher proportion of Black voters than the overall pool of all registered voters.
Females make up 56% of early voters compared to 44% for males.
There’s a big variance in where the votes are coming from. Taliaferro County has recorded just 515 early votes so far while Fulton is has more than 359,000 votes. All but 8 of the state’s 159 counties have at least 1,000 votes.
Since early voting began on Dec. 14, the state has been receiving an average of about 146,000 votes per day. Voting significantly slowed on Christmas Eve and the following days. But it picked back up on Monday and about 220,000 have voted each day this week.
Voters 65 and older make up 32% of all early votes, a number that has been steadily dropping as more votes have rolled in.
