Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) stated he expects a “record-breaker” for early voting, which opened Tuesday within the Peach State, even within the wake of devastation from Hurricane Helene that threatened to disrupt entry.
“It looks like this will be a record-breaker for the first day of early voting — but we don’t make predictions, we let the voters decide but it looks like we’re going to have strong early voting today,” Raffensperger stated at a press convention on the Georgia State Capitol.
He added that the state has been working “overtime” to verify early voting might begin and absentee ballots could possibly be despatched out as scheduled.
“When you think back to where we were two and a half weeks ago, this is a cause for celebration. So many people said, ‘What’s going to happen? There’s no way you’ll have elections starting in Georgia on time,'” Raffensberger stated, including that early voting began on time in all 159 counties within the state.
The state secretary famous that as of virtually 10:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the state already had greater than 71,000 folks vote early.
Hurricane Helene created new hurdles for voters and election officers alike in Georgia and North Carolina, threatening disruptions to the voting course of — together with energy outages and street closures — in two of probably the most important battleground states simply weeks earlier than Election Day.
However the Georgia secretary of state’s workplace had began working earlier than the storm landed to arrange for any potential disturbances, communications director Robert Sinners informed The Hill final week.
“We have to let the first responders finish doing their jobs, but as power is restored and voting locations can be assessed, we will make sure that the upcoming election is safe, secure and convenient for all Georgia voters,” Raffensperger stated on the time.
Final week, a federal choose declined to reopen voter registration within the state regardless of alleged disruptions famous in a joint criticism filed by the NAACP, the Georgia state convention of the NAACP and different advocacy teams.
