By: GPB News Staff
Early voting ahead of the U.S. Senate runoff election between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker began in several Georgia counties over the weekend with a patchwork of start dates and times.
Statewide early voting for all 159 counties begins today and ends Friday, Dec. 2 with runoff Election Day on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Gabriel Sterling from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office said that weekend turnout totaled nearly 200,000.
At least 87,000 Georgians voted today, when fewer counties were open than Saturday, when more than 69,000 people voted.
We'll head into the five mandatory statewide early voting days with almost 200,000 early votes (adding in mail-in), an impressive total. #gapol pic.twitter.com/l1uZNuqGsg
— stephen fowler (@stphnfwlr) November 28, 2022
Lines varied by county, with densely populated areas experiencing wait times of up to two hours or more on Saturday and Sunday.
Weekend voting is popular and a Georgia appeals court ruled on Nov. 21 to allow counties to offer early voting for the U.S. Senate runoff election beginning Saturday, Nov. 26 — but Republican groups appealed to Georgia’s highest court Nov. 22 in an attempt to prohibit it.
The Court of Appeals declined a request by the state to stay a lower court’s ruling that said state law allows early voting that day.
Warnock’s campaign, along with the Democratic Party of Georgia and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had sued [https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-herschel-walker-lawsuits-georgia-958586396db5ed82c4d1291e9abe3690] to challenge that guidance.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox on Nov. 18 issued an order siding with the Warnock campaign and the Democratic groups. He found that the law cited by the state regarding Saturday voting after a holiday does not apply to a runoff election.
The Georgia Republican Party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee filed an appeal [https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/11/22/republicans-try-stop-saturday-voting-in-us-senate-runoff-in-georgia] with the Georgia Supreme Court, asking the high court to issue an emergency stay of the lower court ruling.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama is returning to Atlanta to support Sen. Warnock at a rally at Pullman Yards Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022.
Click here to find your polling place. [https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/]
This story comes to Polialert.com through a reporting partnership with GPB News, a non-profit newsroom covering the state of Georgia.