ATLANTA — Georgia has seen a record number of voters heading to the polls.
As of Thursday evening, more than 832,000 votes have been cast in the first three days of early voting.
Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger spoke exclusively with Channel 2′s Richard Elliot about the record turnout and Wednesday’s court ruling halting new election rules.
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The injunction prevents the new state election board rules from going into effect.
The secretary supports that ruling, but on Thursday he was all smiles over early voting across the state.
“We are just excited about the early voting turnout. We had over 300,000 people show up on day one,” Raffensperger said. “We’re now looking at well over 600,000 and going to 700,000, and probably by the end of today, we’re going to hit over 800,000 people have voted.”
Channel 2 was outside Cobb County’s main elections office on Thursday morning and despite the lines, wait times were under 30 minutes.
“It was quick and easy. They had it really organized. It took maybe 30 minutes,” voter Vic Carroll said.
“Oh, I like it. I like it. In and out, get it done and over with,” voter Saprina Cooper said.
Raffensperger supported Wednesday’s ruling by a Fulton County judge stopping the state elections board from implementing its controversial new rules, saying his office followed the law and the constitution when it opposed them.
And he said, seeing those high early voter turnout numbers shows him that Georgians do trust the system.
“What it really means is that people trust the system. When you see that kind of, people show what they think when they show up to vote, and they’re out there voting,” Raffensperger said.
He said they paid particular attention to making sure early voting sites were ready to go this week in areas of Georgia hit hard by Hurricane Helene.
He said that with regard to those areas, it’s been so far, so good.
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