Georgia Sets Record For Early Voter Turnout
The state of Georgia is breaking records for early voter turnout.
With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, all eyes are on the Georgia gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, is up against GOP candidate Herschel Walker in a race that could decide which party will control the U.S. Senate. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is being challenged by Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their close race in 2018. According to WXIA, Georgia voters have cast 1 million votes since Oct. 17, which is when early voting began. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference, "To put that into perspective, at this point in the last midterm in 2018 we stood at about 590,000 votes. That is nearly a 70% increase, comparing apples to apples."
That said, Abrams is warning Georgians about voter suppression despite the increase in turnout. During an October 24 press conference the former state senator explained, “In 2018, we had record turnout. We had record turnout that shattered records for Democrats among communities of color and in that same election.”
She continued, “We know that 85,000 Georgians were denied their right to vote due to voter suppression tactics that shut down their precincts. We know that 50,000 voters had their right to vote held hostage by the exact match process which was proven to be voter suppression tactics. We know that thousands of people stood in lines for hours because of voter suppression tactics.”
In 2018, Abrams filed a lawsuit after she narrowly lost the governor’s race to Kemp, who was serving at the time as Georgia Secretary of State. Abrams accused Kemp of using his power to suppress votes to which Kemp denied. A federal judge ruled that the state did not violate the constitutional rights of voters.
