Ethan Hague, Campus Carrier staff writer
Elizabeth Montiel-Alvarado, Campus Carrier staff writer
On Monday, Oct. 17th, Georgia voters set record high numbers for early voting in a midterm election. According to the Office of Georgia Secretary of State, just on the first day of early voting for the November 8thmidterm election, 131,000 Georgians cast their ballot, 70,849 more than the first day of early voting during the 2018 midterm election. This 85% increase approximates the numbers for the 2020 presidential election on day one.
“The midterm election cycle, that’s just what we call the general election that takes place between presidential elections, and the elections look a little bit different around the country,” Abigail Vegter, assistant professor of political science, said. “So one thing that’s true for all these elections that are happening is we are choosing our U.S. representatives. U.S. representatives serve two-year terms. We have 100 senators and we try and spread out their elections, so typically about 1/3 of U.S senators will also be on the ballot this year.
With the way gubernatorial elections and senatorial elections are spread out, all of the Georgia representatives, as well as the governor will be elected this year. Gubernatorial elections happen every four years and senatorial elections are every two. There is an overlap in this election with both the gubernatorial and the senatorial elections. Senator Warnock is up for reelection to maintain the position he was elected for in the special 2020 election, with Republican Herschel Walker challenging him
This midterm election is projected to have an increase in voter turnout. According to Associate Professor of Political Science Michael Bailey, that is largely in part due to the continued polarization of political parties.
“Historically, midterm elections do not enjoy nearly as many voters as the presidential elections,” Bailey said. “However, as our two political parties are polarizing, and more and more fearful of one another, increasingly we feel like a lot is at stake…we all feel, Democrats and Republicans alike, like every election counts. Because what’s at stake is who’s going to be in the majority in the House of Representatives, and who’s going to be in the majority in the Senate.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that Georgia was able to raise its voting numbers due to the work of the elections division and the county election directors. Approximately two million Georgians are expected to cast their ballot during the early voting period. The increase in accessibility to polls has generated a higher interest in voting this election. There have been minimal reports of long lines at voting stations, with primarily the metropolitan area experiencing occasional lines or difficulties.
”Certain [segments of the] population have experienced a jump in voter turnout for these midterms,” Vegter said. “So there’s a couple of different reasons for this. We’ve expanded early voting, which means we created more sites for early voting, we started the process earlier, and all that makes it easier for people to turn out. We’ve also had some mobilization efforts that are different from what we’ve seen in previous years.”
Other reasons for the increased voter turnout include the mobilization of voters by Stacey Abrams and her company, as well as an increase among women voters as a result of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Events like this have proven to be mobilizing forces across Georgia, as more conservative and liberal voting demographics have increased.
“There are numbers that suggest older Georgians are turning out in increased numbers,” Vegter added. “That’s a demographic of people that normally wouldn’t turn out until election day, and given all that happened in Georgia in 2020, there’s a push to get voters out early so we can start counting votes early and get results on time. We know early voting tends to favor the Democrats, but the Republicans in this election cycle have also pushed early voting. So it’s hard to kind of ascertain which party’s at an advantage given these increased numbers.”
According to Vegter, Democrats have become more reliant on younger voters this election. She said that early voting is helpful for younger voters, a generation that has the power to swing Georgia in a more liberal direction.
“We know there was an attempt to [create] expanded access through mail-in ballots, including an increase in drop-off boxes for ballots,” Vegter said. “We also know that the Democratic Party especially is courting young voters, and we’ve seen that with policy positions that they’re taking things like student debt forgiveness, like pardoning federal marijuana convictions. it’s not a coincidence that Biden delivered on those campaign promises this close to the midterms.”
Through this election cycle, Republicans have taken a more crime and economy centered stance on their policy, while Democrats are focusing on abortion. The polarizing ideological issue of abortion, from a liberal standpoint, has had to be shifted in order to account for issues of crime however, as that is still an issue on voters’ minds. Increased ideological polarization and more evenly divided partisanship have also affected election strategies and results.
“In the past, it was almost a political science truism that a heavy, heavy voter turnout benefits Democrats,” Bailey said. “Nowadays, because we’re so evenly divided, both parties are doing everything they can to get votes. The people who probably have the hardest time voting are true centrists, because they’re probably not super satisfied with either party.”
Early voting is either in person or by mail-in ballot is until Nov. 8, the official election day.