Georgia Election Watch: Three Sunday-Dinner Claims About Georgia's Early Vote, Checked

Three claims about Georgia's early vote will be made at Sunday dinner tables today. The count supports one of them only in part. Here is what the numbers say as of 8:33 a.m. ET on Sunday, October 25.

The count

The Georgia Secretary of State reports 1,751,641 accepted early ballots, up 78,996 since the Oct. 24 snapshot. That is 23.26 percent of 7,532,268 active voters. GeorgiaVotes, which counts 2022 and 2026 the same way, shows 2026 ahead of the same point in 2022 by 6.5 percent (1,751,157 versus 1,643,449, as of 6:04 a.m. ET). Early totals measure participation, not preference.

Claim one: "It's all Atlanta"

Partly. The five largest counties hold about 39.9 percent of accepted ballots. The other 154 counties hold the rest.

• Statewide: 1,751,641 accepted ballots, up 78,996 since Oct. 24. Modeled 53 percent Democratic, 39 percent Republican.
• Fulton: 210,564, up 9,145. Modeled 70.8 percent Democratic, 21.0 percent Republican.
• DeKalb: 146,786, up 6,738. Modeled 83.7 percent Democratic, 10.7 percent Republican.
• Cobb: 146,754, up 6,615. Modeled 57.2 percent Democratic, 34.4 percent Republican.
• Gwinnett: 140,990, up 7,816. Modeled 60.9 percent Democratic, 27.7 percent Republican.
• Cherokee: 54,024, up 2,360. Modeled 27.7 percent Democratic, 62.3 percent Republican.

Party columns are modeled estimates from L2 voter data (statewide n = 1,612,533; file dated 9:26 a.m. ET on Oct. 24, a day older than the official count), not official results. They estimate who voted, not how they voted. The dashboard has no 2022 comparison for party mix.

Claim two: "Early vote tells you who wins"

No. Georgia does not register voters by party, so the modeled split above is the only party view available, and it measures none of the voters' choices. Polls attempt that. Quantus Insights (Oct. 15-17, 755 likely voters, margin of error 3.8 points) reported Jon Ossoff at 51.8 percent and Mike Collins at 44.9 percent for U.S. Senate, with Rick Jackson ahead of Keisha Lance Bottoms by 1.6 points for governor, which the report called a statistical tie. For lieutenant governor it showed Greg Dolezal at 47.3 percent and Josh McLaurin at 46.6 percent. A poll is one reading with a margin. The count on November 3 is the only one that decides anything.

Claim three: "Mail ballots are everything"

Not by volume. The dashboard shows 81,778 mail ballots accepted of 164,361 requested. Against 1,751,641 accepted early ballots, that is about 4.7 percent.

National early-vote snapshot

National counts differ by outlet and date. The Associated Press, reporting data from 39 states as of Oct. 15, put early ballots at about 6 million. A column dated Oct. 25, citing the University of Florida Election Lab, reported 19 million across 45 states. The UF Election Lab's own page showed placeholders when checked. These are different dates and coverage, so no single figure is used here.

Why this matters for 2027

The people elected November 3 will set the committee rosters and priorities when the General Assembly convenes January 11, 2027. Turnout this high tells a legislator that constituents are paying attention. It does not tell them what constituents want.