Early voting in Georgia is over. But. where are the absentee ballots? The length of early voting was reduced from 17 to 5 days. Some counties had six or seven days, but that was because a Judge ruled that Saturday voting was allowed in any county. Only a few counties opened voting on Saturday. Also, some counties conducted Sunday voting.

According the Data Hub of Georgia secretary of state, about 1.85 million voters have cast votes (includes absentee votes), which is a 26% turnout of the more than 7 million active voters. In November, 3.9 million votes were cast.

So, one of the effects of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 is long lines at polling locations, especially in Georgia’s larger counties. Follow the previous link to a Georgia Tech Voter Guide page that nicely explains the changes to the Georgia’s voting procedures.

Absentee Ballots

There is another, more sinister effect of the Election Integrity Act, and that is how it has affected early voting in Georgia. During the 2020 election, every registered voter was mailed an absentee ballot application. I know this, because I used this option to vote in 2020. At this time, it was a simple matter of filling out the application, and signing your name. You could drop your ballot application off in drop boxes that were available 24/7. The new election act moved all the drop boxes inside election sites, and they were only available during the business hours. Furthermore, only one drop box is available for every 100,000 active voters. This simple change has had an effect of discouraging people to use absentee ballots (Figure 1).

More to the Story

But there is more to this story. As I said earlier, in 2020 we all received ballots by mail and could use them. Not this time. After you request an application for a ballot, you have to wait until your ballot is mailed to you. The new voter act now requires a Georgia driver’s license, or a state I.D. You have to sign the application. You could also be fined $10,000 for not following voter registration policies.

According to a New York Times article, absentee voting in the November 2022 general election dropped by 81% from the level of the 2020 election. The authors of the article also said that this was the highest drop among competitive state wide elections.

In the runoff, people have not used absentee ballots. And in some counties (Cobb, where I live), thousands of ballots were not mailed out on time. Even today, election officials were saying that the shortened runoff period has duly affected their ability to handle the absentee ballot choice.

Absentee Ballots are a Non-factor in the Runoff

When you look carefully at the number of absentee ballots cast in the 2021runoff and compare it to the number of absentee ballots cast so far in the 2022 runoff, the results are astounding. Early voting in Georgia has not been as successful as the secretary of state’s office has said. Figure 2 shows the results for a few counties. In 2021, in the Warnock vs Loeffler race, in the top five counties I’ve listed, there was an average of 239,830 absentee ballots cast. In the 2022 runoff between Warnock and Walker, the average for these counties was only 8,358 ballots (Figure 2). This seems unbelievable to me. But, when you take into consideration that the there were only 4 weeks separating the November election and the December runoff, then maybe we have documented evidence that the Republican election changes from 2021 has had a distinct affect on absentee voting. It’s true that COVID-19 was still raging in January 2021. A large number of people chose to vote by mail. There was also time to request and turn in ballots.

County	Absentee Ballots* 2021 Warnock vs Loeffler	Absentee Ballots** 2022 Warnock vs Walker
Cobb	241,564	9583
Fulton	383,921	9575
Dekalb	283,340	8167
Gwinnett	272,157	9779
Chatham	75,850	4688
Average	239,830	8,358

Conclusions

Georgia election officials are touting the turnout for the runoff between Warnock and Walker. The election officials fail to mention, that in 2021, more people voted by mail, and as a result in-person turn out was lower than normal. In the five days of the runoff, 1.8 million votes have been cast, while only 139,915 were absentee ballots. In the last runoff more than 4 million people voted. To reach that level of voting, then 2.6 million people will have to vote on Tuesday, December 6.

We can conclude that the Election Integrity Act has reduced the ways that people vote. Fewer people are voting by absentee ballot. The five-day period of the runoff has reduced the total number of people who will vote in the Warnock vs Walker race.