Early voting enters final week

More than 253,000 Georgians have already cast their ballots.

Rising numbers of voters are expected at the polls this week during the last few days of in-person early voting for Georgia’s runoff election.

More than 253,000 voters have cast their ballots in advance of the Aug. 11 runoff, which includes races for the U.S. House of Representatives, the Georgia General Assembly, district attorneys and other county offices.

The last week of in-person early voting is usually the busiest. Georgia requires three weeks of advance voting before election day.

Turnout for the runoff has been lower than for the June 9 primary, as expected. At the same point before the primary, 883,000 people had already voted, on the way to a record turnout for a Georgia primary, with nearly 2.4 million voters casting ballots.

So far, more people are voting from home than at polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.

More than two-thirds of voters in the runoff election have returned absentee-by-mail ballots, according to state election data through Sunday.

Voters can still request absentee ballots, but they will only be counted if they’re received at county election offices before polls close at 7 p.m. on election day. All voters in Georgia are eligible to cast absentee ballots.

Some counties have set up drop boxes, where voters can deposit their absentee ballots rather than depending on the U.S. Postal Service.

Slightly more voters have pulled Democratic Party ballots than Republican Party ballots, 45% to 44%. The rest have used nonpartisan ballots, which include races for superior court judges but leave out most other candidates.

The winning candidates in the runoff advance to the Nov. 3 general election.