Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (Photo by Beau Evans)

ATLANTA – Early voting turnout in Georgia soared past 1.5 million during the weekend, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reported Monday.

Early voting has been setting records daily since the early voting period began two weeks ago, surging well past the turnout ahead of the last midterm election in 2018 and coming close to the early voting turnout before the presidential election two years ago.

“We encourage every eligible voter to get their ballot in this week,” Raffensperger said. “Most counties have multiple early voting locations open to serve the demand.”

Nearly 116,000 voters cast early ballots on Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, absentee ballots have begun to come in in larger numbers after a much slower pace than 2020. As of Monday morning, 155,104 absentee ballots had been returned to county election offices. Only 1,054 ballots had been rejected statewide, and those voters receive cure notices explaining how they can cure any discrepancy.

Early voting turnout is expected to increase during the last week of the early voting period, which ends this Friday. To find early voting locations and hours in your county, visit the secretary of state’s My Voter Page.

This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.