Final day of early voting ahead of Senate runoff sets Georgia record

It’s a record.

Friday’s final day to cast early ballots in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff election sets a new mark. Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling tweeted Friday evening the record-busting early voting single-day number was at least 350,574, with a final tally still to come.

Runoff election day is Tuesday, Dec. 6. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock faces Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

Voter enthusiasm to cast early ballots was on display in many parts of Georgia and metro Atlanta with lines at many polling locations. At one in east Cobb County, midday wait times were running 10-15 minutes. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported more than half of Fulton County’s early voting locations had reported wait times of more than an hour.

Gabriel says through Thursday, 1,356,095 Georgians had cast early votes. So the overall total is at least 1,706,669 votes across the entire early voting period.