Georgia’s early vote is running ahead of 2022 because of the Atlanta suburbs. Through Tuesday, Oct. 20, nine suburban counties around Atlanta had accepted 46,607 more ballots than at the same point in 2022, nearly all of Georgia’s 51,880-ballot lead. Fulton and DeKalb, where a larger share of voters had already turned out in 2022, are 2.9% ahead, and the rest of Georgia is about even.
Mail ballots are the open question: a smaller share of requested ballots has come back than in 2022 or 2024. Part of that gap is how six counties have recorded returns; the rest is a widespread shortfall the records cannot yet explain, whether slower mail or voters holding their ballots longer.
Explore daily counts by county and voter group on the Georgia Early Voting Dashboard.
Related analysis: Georgia’s early voters lean more Democratic than they did at this point in 2022.
The Atlanta suburbs are driving Georgia’s gain
The nine suburban counties of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 11-county region have accepted 375,121 early ballots, 14.2% more than at the same point in 2022. They are Cobb, Gwinnett, Cherokee, Forsyth, Henry, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette and Rockdale, and their 46,607 added ballots are nearly all of Georgia’s 51,880-ballot lead; Gwinnett’s 2022 count includes estimated ballots. In those counties 15.9% of registered voters have voted early, against 14.6% at this point in 2022.
Fulton and DeKalb have found fewer new early voters. Together they are 6,901 ballots, or 2.9%, ahead of 2022. A larger share of their registered voters had already voted early by this point in 2022, 16.8%, and 17.1% have this year. Tuesday was a stronger day for them: they accepted 16.8% more ballots than on the matching 2022 Tuesday, after 4.1% on Monday, against 13.5% more in the suburban counties. The other 148 counties combined are 1,628 ballots, or 0.3%, behind 2022, though Tuesday’s gain was broad: they accepted 14.5% more than on the matching 2022 Tuesday.
How to read this table: running totals through Oct. 20, 2026 and Oct. 25, 2022, the day with the same number of days until Election Day. Share of registered voters is early voters as a share of each year’s registered voters.
| Area | 2026 so far | 2022, same point | Change | Ballots added | Share of registered voters, 2026 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nine suburban counties | 375,121 | 328,514 | +14.2% | +46,607 | 15.9% | 14.6% |
| Fulton and DeKalb | 247,796 | 240,895 | +2.9% | +6,901 | 17.1% | 16.8% |
| Other 148 counties | 563,918 | 565,546 | -0.3% | -1,628 | 12.8% | 13.6% |
| Georgia | 1,186,835 | 1,134,955 | +4.6% | +51,880 | 14.4% | 14.5% |
Scroll horizontally to see the full table.
The nine suburban counties are the Atlanta Regional Commission’s other counties: Cobb, Gwinnett, Cherokee, Forsyth, Henry, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette and Rockdale. Gwinnett’s 2022 count includes estimated ballots; see how we estimated them.
The suburbs also outpaced Fulton and DeKalb in 2022 and 2024, but their gains were not this concentrated. At this point in 2022, the nine counties had accepted 85.5% more early ballots than at the same point in 2018, against 62.5% more in Fulton and DeKalb and 36.0% more in the rest of Georgia, and they supplied 38.5% of the statewide increase. In 2024, early ballots at this point were about even with 2020 statewide; the nine counties were 1.4% behind 2020 and Fulton and DeKalb 13.4% behind, while the rest of Georgia was 5.4% ahead. Their share of the state’s early ballots jumped in 2020 and has stayed near 30% since: 30.1% in 2020, 28.9% in 2022, 29.9% in 2024 and 31.6% this year, the highest at this point of any general election in our records, which begin in 2014. What is new this year is that the nine supply nearly all of a modest statewide gain, 4.6%, while the rest of Georgia is about even.
How to read this table: each year’s accepted early ballots through the day 14 days before Election Day, and the share from each area.
| General election | Georgia early ballots | Nine suburban counties | Fulton and DeKalb | Rest of Georgia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 251,471 | 23.6% | 17.4% | 58.9% |
| 2016 | 765,609 | 23.8% | 17.9% | 58.3% |
| 2018 | 741,188 | 23.9% | 20.0% | 56.1% |
| 2020 | 1,958,668 | 30.1% | 21.3% | 48.6% |
| 2022 | 1,134,955 | 28.9% | 21.2% | 49.8% |
| 2024 | 1,945,341 | 29.9% | 18.6% | 51.5% |
| 2026 | 1,186,835 | 31.6% | 20.9% | 47.5% |
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Accepted early ballots through the day 14 days before Election Day in each year. The 2022 count includes estimated Gwinnett ballots.
On Tuesday, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett accepted 3,155, 2,515 and 2,140 more ballots than on their matching 2022 Tuesdays, and Fulton 1,830 more. Athens-Clarke, in its second day with four early voting sites, accepted 2,293 ballots against 678, and Richmond 2,323 against 1,035, more than twice its 2022 Tuesday count. Forsyth and Cherokee fell short of their 2022 Tuesdays, by 1,480 and 443 ballots, and together are 23.2% ahead of 2022, down from 33.6% through Monday in the latest records. Forty-nine of Georgia’s 159 counties are ahead of 2022, up from 45 through Monday in the latest records (we reported 43); the median county is 5.9% behind.
How to read this table: Tuesday compares Oct. 20, 2026 with Oct. 25, 2022; the running totals compare each 2026 day with the 2022 day with the same number of days until Election Day. Shaded rows are suburban Atlanta counties.
| County | Tuesday 2026 | Matching 2022 day | Tuesday change | Through Monday | Through Tuesday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cobb | 14,256 | 11,101 | +28.4% | +13.1% | +15.1% |
| DeKalb | 12,669 | 10,154 | +24.8% | +2.0% | +4.4% |
| Gwinnett* | 12,210 | 10,070* | +21.3% | +15.1% | +15.9% |
| Fulton | 17,473 | 15,643 | +11.7% | +0.6% | +1.8% |
| Clayton | 3,787 | 2,848 | +33.0% | +1.4% | +4.3% |
| Athens-Clarke | 2,293 | 678 | +238.2% | +11.2% | +32.8% |
| Richmond | 2,323 | 1,035 | +124.4% | +58.5% | +65.1% |
| Cherokee | 4,852 | 5,295 | -8.4% | +36.3% | +27.9% |
| Forsyth | 4,070 | 5,550 | -26.7% | +30.5% | +17.9% |
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* Gwinnett’s 2022 count includes estimated ballots; see how we estimated them. Shaded rows are suburban Atlanta counties.
Tuesday’s gain over 2022 rebounded
Tuesday matches Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, when Georgia accepted 136,564 ballots. Tuesday’s 156,549 was 14.6% more; in-person ballots were 19.2% ahead. In the latest records Monday’s count rose from 162,854 to 165,871, so Monday was 7.6% ahead of its matching 2022 day rather than the 5.6% we reported. Georgia’s running total, 1,186,835 ballots, is 4.6% ahead of 2022 and 39.0% behind 2024.
How to read this table: each row is one day’s accepted ballots. The 2022 columns show the day with the same number of days until Election Day.
| Day (days until Election Day) | 2026 all ballots | 2026 in person | 2022 all ballots | 2022 in person | Day’s change | Running total change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue., Oct. 13 (21) | 196,823 | 190,395 | 146,775 | 134,872 | +34.1% | -31.8% |
| Wed., Oct. 14 (20) | 180,511 | 174,528 | 146,366 | 127,797 | +23.3% | -13.6% |
| Thu., Oct. 15 (19) | 171,554 | 164,283 | 138,383 | 123,017 | +24.0% | -4.7% |
| Fri., Oct. 16 (18) | 189,016 | 180,882 | 156,513 | 141,774 | +20.8% | +0.7% |
| Sat., Oct. 17 (17) | 95,352 | 91,415 | 86,837 | 80,309 | +9.8% | +1.7% |
| Sun., Oct. 18 (16) | 25,319 | 24,808 | 18,764 | 18,113 | +34.9% | +2.4% |
| Mon., Oct. 19 (15) | 165,871 | 155,252 | 154,160 | 133,499 | +7.6% | +3.2% |
| Tue., Oct. 20 (14) | 156,549 | 149,805 | 136,564 | 125,664 | +14.6% | +4.6% |
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Mail ballots: is the slower return statewide or local?
By Tuesday, 52,924 of the 140,976 mail ballots requested this year had been returned, 37.5%. At the same point, 14 days before Election Day, 46.2% of requested mail ballots had been returned in 2022 and 42.5% in 2024. Far fewer voters asked for mail ballots this year: 140,976, against 245,386 at this point in 2022 and 292,307 in 2024. We compare only with 2022 and 2024 because Georgia’s 2021 election law changed mail voting: requests now open 78 days before an election and close 11 days before, and ballots go out starting 29 days before.
A smaller share of requested mail ballots is back than in 2022 or 2024
Scroll horizontally to see the full chart.
Each line is the share of mail ballots requested by that day that the county had recorded as returned, accepted or rejected. Each voter is counted once.
Source: Georgia Secretary of State absentee ballot records for the 2022, 2024 and 2026 general elections, analyzed by Civic Forge Solutions.
The question we are trying to answer is whether this is secular, such as a statewide slowdown in the mail, or limited to some counties and to causes we can identify. The records so far show some of each, and they cannot yet settle it.
The shortfall is widespread but uneven. Of mail ballots sent at least 14 days before Tuesday, 41.7% were recorded as returned within 14 days of being sent, against 56.7% in 2022 and 52.3% in 2024. Of the 73 counties that sent at least 200 such ballots in both 2026 and 2022, 67 are behind their 2022 rate, by a median of 8.2 points. In six counties, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Athens-Clarke, Newton and Bibb, which sent 30,315 of those ballots, the share was 18.9%, against 48.4% in 2022. In the rest of Georgia it was 51.1%, against 60.4% in 2022 and 55.8% in 2024.
How to read this table: of mail ballots sent at least 14 days before the matching day, the share recorded as returned within 14 days of being sent.
| County | 2026 ballots sent at least 14 days earlier | Returned within 14 days, 2026 | 2022 | 2024 | Change from 2022, points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newton | 1,367 | 10.4% | 63.6% | 45.4% | -53.2 |
| DeKalb | 8,556 | 26.5% | 54.8% | 44.1% | -28.3 |
| Athens-Clarke | 1,286 | 33.9% | 57.4% | 63.8% | -23.5 |
| Bibb | 1,781 | 22.7% | 55.2% | 49.5% | -32.5 |
| Gwinnett | 8,518 | 26.9% | 52.7% | 45.4% | -25.8 |
| Cobb | 8,807 | 2.3% | 35.0% | 35.5% | -32.7 |
| Fulton | 10,071 | 36.1% | 46.2% | 41.7% | -10.1 |
| Forsyth | 2,759 | 37.3% | 61.6% | 55.6% | -24.3 |
| Cherokee | 3,457 | 53.7% | 60.2% | 55.8% | -6.5 |
| Clayton | 1,940 | 51.9% | 63.7% | 66.4% | -11.8 |
| Henry | 1,957 | 59.3% | 63.1% | 59.3% | -3.8 |
| Rockdale | 1,004 | 58.8% | 63.3% | 66.4% | -4.5 |
| Douglas | 1,203 | 46.3% | 56.1% | 48.0% | -9.8 |
| Coweta | 1,577 | 62.7% | 66.2% | 64.9% | -3.5 |
| Georgia | 103,068 | 41.7% | 56.7% | 52.3% | -15.0 |
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Ballots sent at least 14 days before the matching day (Oct. 20, 2026; Oct. 25, 2022; Oct. 22, 2024), recorded as returned, accepted or rejected, within 14 days of being sent. Shaded rows are the six counties discussed above.
Known cause 1: some counties record mail receipts late or in batches. A ballot’s return date in the records is the day the county recorded it as received. Cobb recorded 24 mail ballots as returned through Saturday, Oct. 17, then 180 on Monday and 1,752 on Tuesday; in a story published Oct. 17, Cobb Elections told East Cobb News it had issued 11,164 mail ballots and received 519. Athens-Clarke has recorded none since Friday, Oct. 16. Newton recorded returns on three of the last seven weekdays, and Bibb recorded its first on Oct. 15. DeKalb and Gwinnett, like Fulton, recorded only a handful of mail returns before Oct. 13, while neighboring Clayton and Henry recorded returns almost every weekday from Oct. 8.
| County | Mon. 12 | Tue. 13 | Wed. 14 | Thu. 15 | Fri. 16 | Sat. 17 | Sun. 18 | Mon. 19 | Tue. 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cobb | 0 | 9 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 180 | 1,752 |
| Athens-Clarke | 0 | 126 | 132 | 90 | 77 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Newton | 0 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 23 | 69 | 26 | 0 | 114 |
| Clayton | 104 | 111 | 235 | 96 | 248 | 13 | 8 | 173 | 216 |
| Henry | 33 | 263 | 176 | 214 | 232 | 20 | 5 | 282 | 0 |
| Forsyth | 83 | 125 | 164 | 126 | 119 | 170 | 9 | 199 | 163 |
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Mail ballots by the return date recorded in the state’s Oct. 21 records. Shaded rows are among the six counties discussed above.
Known cause 2: this year’s records are a running snapshot, and 2022’s and 2024’s are final. Counties keep adding returns with earlier dates. Outside the six counties, mail returns dated Oct. 14 or earlier numbered 14,175 in the next day’s records and 15,469 in Tuesday’s, 9.1% more; in the six counties, 243 and 858. The 2022 and 2024 figures come from the state’s final records, which include every late entry. But outside the six counties, 1,151 of those 1,294 late entries were dated Oct. 14 itself, the most recent day in the earlier records. Late entries mostly fill in the last day or two, so they are unlikely to close much of the gap outside the six counties.
The unexplained part. The six counties hold more than half of the shortfall, but 67 of 73 counties are behind, and the rest of Georgia is 9.3 points behind 2022 and 4.7 behind 2024. The records show when a county recorded a ballot, not when it was postmarked or delivered, and they include ballots returned to drop boxes, so they cannot tell slower mail from voters holding their ballots longer; Forsyth, for example, is 24 points behind 2022 although it has recorded returns every weekday. Older voters cast most mail ballots: voters 65 and older returned 41,955 of the 52,525 mail ballots accepted so far, against 83,333 of 113,330 at this point in 2022. Another 83,312 mail ballots have been issued and not yet accepted.
The gain among middle-aged voters has faded
Voters ages 35 to 64 cast 23.9% more early ballots than on the matching 2022 day on the first Tuesday of early voting, but 1.7% fewer on Monday and 3.5% more on Tuesday. They are now 3.4% behind 2022 overall, 509,840 ballots against 527,932. Voters 18 to 34 are 21.1% ahead and voters 65 and older 9.5% ahead, and both were well ahead again on Tuesday, by 31.1% and 22.9%. Black voters cast 48,217 of Tuesday’s ballots, 37.3% more than on the matching 2022 day and 30.8% of the total, against 25.7% in 2022.
How to read this table: each cell compares one day’s accepted ballots in an age group with the 2022 day with the same number of days until Election Day.
| Age | Tue. (21) | Wed. (20) | Thu. (19) | Fri. (18) | Sat. (17) | Sun. (16) | Mon. (15) | Tue. (14) | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 34 | +52% | +35% | +39% | +34% | +27% | +50% | +22% | +31% | +21.1% |
| 35 to 54 | +23% | +11% | +11% | +8% | +1% | +26% | -2% | +3% | -3.5% |
| 55 to 64 | +25% | +15% | +12% | +13% | +5% | +24% | -1% | +4% | -3.4% |
| 65 and older | +40% | +30% | +33% | +31% | +15% | +48% | +14% | +23% | +9.5% |
Scroll horizontally to see the full table.
Days are labeled with the number of days until Election Day. Age is as of each election.
Our 2022 comparisons cover every county
The state’s 2022 ballot records are missing most Fulton and Gwinnett early in-person ballots from Oct. 24, 2022 on. Our 2022 counts for Fulton come from the 2022 records in the ballot file Fulton County publishes. For Gwinnett we keep every record the state file has and estimate only the ballots it is missing. How we estimated Gwinnett’s ballots. The mail ballot comparisons above use the state’s records only; their check without Fulton and Gwinnett gives the same pattern.
What we are watching next
- Wednesday, Oct. 21, matches Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, when Georgia accepted 133,065 ballots.
- Friday, Oct. 23, is the last day to request a mail ballot, 11 days before Election Day; it matches Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, when Georgia accepted 150,236 ballots.
- Whether the mail gap narrows as counties enter late returns; we will recompute it with each day’s records.
- Whether the Atlanta suburbs keep outpacing Fulton and DeKalb.
- Sunday, Oct. 25, matches Sunday, Oct. 30, 2022, when Georgia accepted 26,544 ballots.