More than 328,000 ballots were cast Tuesday, Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “So with the record breaking 1st day of early voting and accepted absentees we have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far,” he said.
The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said.
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Despite the massive turnout on Tuesday, the process appeared to go smoother this year for some Atlanta-area voters who spoke with CNN.
“Last time I voted, I voted in the city and the lines were out the door. They only had like, maybe like three people working,” said Corine Canada. “So people honestly just started leaving because it was like that. Yeah, like, ‘This is too long. I can’t sit here (and) wait, I have to go back to work.’ But here, no, it was easy.”
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What voters are saying
In line at an Atlanta-area precinct, two voters who identified as Democrats said they were casting ballots for Harris in an effort to avoid the kind of “chaos” they said surrounds Trump.
“It is essential that we vote today simply because we want to prevent as much chaos as possible because Donald Trump has proved to be the most vicious, uneducated, racist individual that we have encountered,” said Fay Ainsworth.
“Well, we’ve got a crazy person running to be president and a very competent young woman opposing him,” said Joseph Henry King Jr., 77.
Kareem Rosshandler, 32, who identifies as an independent, said he was voting for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein to send a message to Democrats over their support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
“We’ve been calling for an arms embargo for the last year and they haven’t been responding, and all the protests and the placards won’t matter if we don’t deliver that message where it really counts, which is at the ballots.”
“I mean, the Green Party wants to get rid of the Electoral College,” Rosshandler added. “And that I think is fantastic because right now we have a two-party system, and the only thing worse than that is a one-party system and we’re not that far from that.”
