Georgia passes 1 million early votes
Election season is doing well but there's levels to this
Welcome to my freemium newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of Atlanta to everything else. For my dad, stay strong! I love you!
Early voting has started, and it ends on November 4th
Early voting in Georgia has started, voters can vote at any polling location within their respective counties. On election day, voters must vote at their assigned location. If you would like to request an absentee ballot, please visit here. All ballots must be requested by October 28th and returned by November 8th.
Additionally, more than 200,000 people have requested an absentee ballot, if you have requested and not received it yet, please call your county’s registrar or visit in person.
1. Early voting numbers are close to 2020’s record turnout*
Georgia saw its one-millionth voter today. The state surpassed 1.1 million voters compared to this same day in 2018 when only 743,000 had cast a ballot. The state also topped the 100,000 absentee ballots mark as well. Voters have this week and next week to vote before election day on Tuesday, November 8th.
Despite the record numbers, the totals are a bit of misdirection—overall turnout is running about 55% of the levels of 2020. An election, where all-time records were broken, reshaping Georgia and the US Senate in the process.
Could Georgia be headed for a historic turnout?
The state is now projecting a total somewhere between 2018’s then-record-setting 4 million and 2020’s all-time record of 5 million voters. For the GOP, who rely more on a surge of election day voter turnout, the early numbers are encouraging. While the Dems should be clearing a much higher percentage of early voters, especially voters under 30 if they want to win. When compared to 2018, all signs point to reaching those levels again, but whether it reaches 2020’s totals depends a lot on later turnout.
2. Despite the early #’s, there is a big gap in 20’ vs 22’
There is a caveat to the early voting, a near drop of absentee voters in 2022 compared to 2020. The pandemic led to an increase in access to voting including a plethora of dropboxes, locations, and most importantly, absentee ballots. When comparing the overall vote totals of the first eight days of early voting in 2022 versus 2020, there are over 812,000 fewer people voting. And turnout is about 55% compared to 2020. After today’s total, that gap is over 900,000 fewer votes cast compared to 2020.
Fwiw, since the election of Obama in 2008, the early voting period in Georgia has been whittled down from six weeks in 2008 to seventeen days in 2022.
3. Early voting breakdown
Last Monday saw a record 134,000 voters cast ballots statewide. The number was 6,000 short of the record set on the first day of 2020 and a near 100% improvement in turnout compared to 2018. Every weekday Monday-Friday saw over 100,000 voters, with Friday seeing the peak of over 141,000 voters last week.
As of Sunday, women are outpacing men at 54% of all voters. Whites lead the largest percentage of all voters at 55%, followed by Black voters at 33%, with Asian Americans and Latinos at a surprisingly low 1.5% each. The SOS is stating that 45% of all voters were over 65 and only 6% were under 30. The data also suggests that 34% of all voters have pulled a Republican ballot compared to 32% of Democrat ballots, with the remaining third of voters choosing an independent ballot.
For the Dems
Fulton County (the largest county by population) leads all voters with a whopping 142,000 voters already, DeKalb is second with ~91,000 voters, Cobb is third with 84,000 voters, and a slightly lower than expected 80,000 voters in Gwinnett (the second largest county by population). The Dems should be looking closely at Cobb, who is at nearly 17% of all votes cast, the area has been a target of Kemp, who campaigned in the area a few weeks ago.
The Dems also have a bigger issue of not reaching larger targets in Gwinnett, the most diverse county in the state. Or Clayton County, the fourth most diverse county, a normally Dem stronghold that broke big for Biden in 2020 but is lagging compared to two years ago at just under 31,000 votes. While the Dems have to galvanize the metro Area again and the Black Belt of central-southeast/west Georgia. Warnock’s home in Savannah/Chatham county is just at 11% of all voters and Athens, a deep blue county in a sea of red, is just a tad under 9%, nine. The area is home to the University of Georgia (UGA) plus a sizeable Black population that is not moving to the polls. All of this is a pittance compared to Augusta/Richmond County which is just under 7%.
For the GOP
While the GOP statewide is going to rely on their two big counties, Cherokee and Forsyth to build a bigger lead. The GOP will also have to continue to rely on the smaller but consistent turnout of more rural counties in northeast and northwest Georgia. Several GOP-leaning counties have already surpassed or are approaching 20% of all overall voters showing up. Those counties, Oconee (22.5%), Greene (25.31%), Towns (24.33%), Rabun (24.05%), Taliaferro (20.58%), and Butts (20.41%) have all surpassed 20%. While others including Peach, Upson, Glynn, Thomas, Baker, Putnam, and Macintosh will break the 20% threshold tomorrow.
4. The GOP is restricting absentee ballots, it’s a good strategy
The biggest changes in 2022 versus 2020 come from the restrictions on absentee ballot voters. Republicans reduced the time period for requesting absentee ballots, followed by reducing the window to send out absentee ballots (49 days previously, now 29 days), polling locations closed in Black districts statewide as well as limiting the number of people accepted for absentee ballots. 1.3 million voted absentee in 2020, the total number of absentee ballots for the entire 2022 election may not break 300,000.
This strategy validates decades of Republican initiatives to reduce voter turnout, restricting access to voting to benefit the incumbency, which in the case of Georgia since 2004 has been a Republican-ruled state legislature. In the restricted access scenarios, only the most dedicated voting blocs, (usually conservative aligned) are likelier to win as Democratic voters are less consistent in annual turnout, voting in local races, and in down-ballot voting.
5. 2021 and 2022’s state laws were focused on reducing Democrat margins of victory, it may work, but the Republicans didn’t need it
The series of laws enacted in both the 2021 and 2022 legislative sessions can be seen as retribution for the losses in the 2020 presidential election and the 2021 runoff. Joe Biden won Georgia by just over 11,000 votes, Jon Ossoff won by ~55,000 votes, and Rev. Warnock won by ~93,000 votes. These three Democratic candidates in the process broke the record totals of every political candidate ever in Georgia history outside of then-incumbent president Donald Trump’s own 2020 totals.
These laws have been aimed at reducing (the Democrat) margins of victory in what was in anticipation of a very tight 2022 election. But the GOP didn’t need to do any of that as they have been running arguably the best series of overlapping political strategies on the local and national level since that election. The last two years of GOP-led politicization efforts via culture wars, media narrative reframing, a national anti-Biden strategy, and weaponizing Left-leaning leaders + talking points, have seen the GOP creating an atmosphere for taking over again, despite losing two years ago.
6. Despite the anti ’Stop the Steal/Never Trump’ rhetoric, Republican legislatures have tilted future elections towards themselves
In swift fashion, the 2020 and 2021 state legislative sessions saw Georgia pass its most comprehensive changes to voting in years, maybe even decades. 2020’s slate of voter suppression bills and the 2021 slate that included SB202 have led to an election aimed at reducing the margins of (Democratic) turnout. That same Democratic turnout almost won Abrams the Governorship in 2018, then defeated Trump in 2020, and Perdue/Loeffler in 2021.
How the Georgia GOP has stacked the deck in their favor for 2022:
This entire 2022 legislative session was based on what the GOP will or won’t due. This year saw most of the bills governor Kemp and the state GOP wanted to get passed without much compromise. The GOP’s numerical advantages in both the state House and Senate, in combination with near-complete uniformed party-line voting made this 2022 legislative session about what they wouldn’t vote for.
The immediate pivot to voting-related issues included an ‘election integrity’ bill in SB202, then engaged in gerrymandering which has nearly ensured a GOP supermajority for another decade. 2021 and 2022’s efforts make statewide elections some of the least competitive in the country. The Dems have to win on the upper chambers to even have a real chance at any political balance, thus making every statewide election a must-win for the Dems but not the Georgia GOP.
What the GOP-led state legislature has done:
The Georgia General Assembly is made up of two chambers, the state House of Representatives, which has 180 representatives, and the state Senate has 56 Senators. The GOP has a 10-vote advantage in the state senate over the Dems (33R-23D) and a likely 26-vote advantage in the statehouse (103-77).
One — The Republicans control the upper chambers of the state House, state Senate, Lt. Governors, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Supreme Court, and the Governor’s seat.
Two — The GOP approved a gerrymandered map that gives them an overrepresentation in government until at least the 2028 election. The GOP’s map diluted the statewide representation in rising blue counties Cobb and Gwinnett, as well as deep blue DeKalb. Fwiw a federal judge even though the map was unfavorable let it remain anyway.
Three — That GOP-approved map has given way to changes to local governance in elections, causing slight panic in Dem-leaning counties and election boards.
This strategy has seen the GOP-led stature, use a combination of over-governance in drafting laws on how local municipalities operate (see: banning masks or vaccine mandates), following the national GOP strategy of starting ‘culture wars’ (see: anti-CRT bills), and expanding the police state in Georgia (see: police protection laws). While still doubling down on ‘election security as a result of the 2020 election. The GOP has given Governor Kemp a Thanos level of legislative power, he’s using all of it.
7. Who has the advantage?
As of right now consider it the GOP. The GOP should be considered the lead in every race, including the US Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.
Why does the GOP have the advantage?
Based on the number of ballots pulled, those demographics lean heavily over 50, and a high probability that those who voted absentee (800,000+) at this point in 2020 may not return at all. Given the propensity for Republican voters to vote in the last week of early voting and in higher numbers on election day, the Dems should be closer to 40-50% of all early ballots pulled to give them a fighting chance.
Additionally, White voters (the bulk of the GOP’s base + the demographic majority of Georgians), religious conservatives, culture warriors, the anti-covid restrictions, rising crime voters, pro-birthers, and those fed up with Joe Biden. The conservative culture war strategy is showing a solid early turnout in the most staunchly conservative counties in the state. Add in the concerns of an increase of potential Kemp-Warnock voters, the GOP is in the driver’s seat.
The GOP is also seeing some solid turnout early in northeast Georgia, while the Dems’ need more traction in the core 5 counties + the outer counties of Rockdale, Newton, and Henry, not to mention the Black Belt. Both parties, especially the Dems should be doing more outreach to Asian and Latino voters as they could be the tipping point in either direction should the election get close.
Get out and vote, bring a friend, bring a neighbor!
-KJW