Peach Tree Times

Georgia voters headed to the ballot box in record numbers this past election season.

According to Fox 5 Atlanta, more than 1.6 million Georgians had already voted in just two weeks of early voting. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the numbers, which indicated that more than 1.5 million voted in person and over 155,000 voted via absentee ballot.

"One in five active voters have already gotten their vote in, and we will hit the 2 million mark next week," Raffensperger said before Election Day, according to Fox 5. "The strength of our voter registration system and our county election directors are on full display."

Back in October, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office reported the number of early voters was 36% higher than at the same time in 2018, with Greene (34.6%), Rabun (33.5%) and Towns (33.5%) counties being the areas with the highest turnout, Fox 5 reported.

As the numbers have climbed, GOP lawmakers have credited the record turnout to their 2021 rewrite of election state laws, which now mandate added identification requirements to the mail voting process and imposed limits to the number of drop boxes used during the 2020 cycle in urban counties, according to Fox 5.

The recently enacted law also makes it easier for anyone to challenge an individual voter’s eligibility, while also cutting into the number of pathways for casting a provisional ballot in the event that a voter showed up in the wrong polling place on Election Day.

Fox 5 reported that Tate Mitchell, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, noted that the record turnout has come about despite his Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams constantly complaining about voter suppression.

Four years ago, Kemp defeated Abrams by about 55,000 votes, even though President Joe Biden won Georgia’s electoral votes by about 11,500 votes in 2020, Fox 5 reported. On the Senate side, Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock won his Senate runoff over Kelly Loeffler by about 95,000.