In 60 seconds: Georgia has closed early voting with 2,823,255 ballots cast — a midterm record, with Friday alone the busiest day of the three-week period. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
- Georgia's final early-vote total is 2,823,255 ballots — 286,940 past the 2022 final total of 2,536,315.
- Friday, October 30 was the busiest day, with 307,051 ballots accepted.
- The 2022 in-person record fell by Thursday afternoon, with a day and a half of early voting still to go.
- Early ballots cover 34.3% of Georgia's 8,223,613 registered voters — meaning about 5.4 million registered voters have not voted early.
- Georgia does not register voters by party, so early-vote totals show participation, not preference.
Georgia didn't just break its midterm early-voting record. It smashed it, then kept going for another day and a half. By the time early voting closed on Friday night, nearly 2.9 million Georgians had already cast a ballot — and the biggest day of the whole three weeks was the last one.
The Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta. File photo: Wikimedia Commons
What happened
Early voting for the 2026 midterms ran from October 13 through October 30. From day one, the pace was different. On October 13, a total of 188,667 Georgians voted in person — 40% more than the 134,962 who showed up on the first day in 2022, and more than double the 70,849 first-day voters in 2018.
The record didn't wait for the final weekend. By 1:35 p.m. on Thursday, October 29, a total of 2,294,275 Georgians had voted early in person, passing the entire 2022 in-person early-voting total of 2,289,951, with another 108,251 absentee ballots accepted by then.
Friday delivered the biggest day of the period. Election officials accepted 307,051 ballots on October 30 alone, according to Georgia Secretary of State data compiled by Civic Forge Solutions. That pushed the final early-vote total to 2,823,255 ballots — 286,940 past the 2022 final total of 2,536,315, which counts every ballot accepted through Election Day that year.
Latest verified facts
Here's how the final numbers stack up, per the Secretary of State's data as compiled on October 31. Early ballots account for 34.3% of Georgia's 8,223,613 registered voters — roughly one in three. That leaves 5,403,467 registered voters with no accepted early ballot, and those voters can still cast a ballot on Election Day.
One shift stands out: Georgians voted in person in huge numbers while mail-in voting shrank. Mail-in absentee voting was down by about half compared with 2022, according to Fox 5 Atlanta, citing the Secretary of State's office.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a statement on October 29, credited the surge to voters' trust in the system and to the county election officials running it. The state's own release that day put it plainly: with one day of early voting left, Georgia had already passed the 2022 midterm record.
Why it matters
Georgia is one of the states both parties watch first on election night, and this year the stakes are obvious. Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff is defending his U.S. Senate seat against Republican Mike Collins, and the governor's race pits Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms against Republican Rick Jackson. A record early vote doesn't decide either race — but it does say something about how seriously Georgians are taking this one.
Here's the thing, though: don't let anyone read a winner out of these numbers. Georgia does not register voters by party, so the state reports no party breakdown of who voted early. Any party split you see floating around is a modeled estimate built from voter files, not an official count. A big early number tells you about participation. It tells you nothing about preference — and nothing about the millions who haven't voted yet.
Impact on the USA and the world
Georgia's turnout also matters beyond its borders because of how the state votes now. The move toward heavy in-person early voting, with mail ballots playing a much smaller role than in 2022, is a habit shift other states will study. Campaigns plan their final weekends around when voters actually show up, and in Georgia, the answer this year was: early, in person, and in record numbers right through the last day.
For the national picture, Georgia's Senate race is one of the contests that could shape the chamber's balance. When a battleground state posts a record midterm turnout, the rest of the country pays attention — not because the early vote predicts the outcome, but because it sets the size of the electorate everyone else is about to join.
What happens next
Now the focus shifts to Tuesday, November 3. Polls in Georgia open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., and anyone who hasn't voted early can vote at their assigned precinct. Voters who requested an absentee ballot but haven't returned it should check the Secretary of State's My Voter Page for their status and options.
One thing to watch: with this much volume already banked, plus whatever Tuesday brings, results in the closest races may take time to finalize — and that's normal, not a sign of trouble. Officials have to count every valid ballot, and accuracy beats speed. Our take: Georgia's record start has set the stage, but the final call still belongs to the millions voting Tuesday.
Read our earlier coverage: Judge Bars DOJ From Threatening Election Workers 4 Days Before the Midterms; Election Day Storm Could Make Voting Messier Across the Central US; Alaska Senate Race 2026: When Will We Know the Winner?
Sources
- Georgia Secretary of State, "Early Voting Passes 2022 Midterm Record With One Day Left" (October 29, 2026) and Election Data Hub, sos.ga.gov
- Civic Forge Solutions, Georgia Early Voting Dashboard (October 31, 2026)
- Fox 5 Atlanta, "Early voting ends today in Georgia after record turnout" (October 30, 2026)
- USA Today, "What is early voting record in Georgia? Record broken with a day left" (October 30, 2026)