Absentee ballot requests for Georgia primary reach 1 million

ATLANTA - More than a million voters have requested a mail-in ballot to vote in Georgia’s primary elections in June, an enormous increase driven by the coronavirus outbreak.

When he postponed the primary elections because of the virus outbreak, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger encouraged people to vote by mail. Election officials said they mailed a form that can be used to request an absentee ballot to all 6.9 million active registered voters.

“Now we can see that effort is exceeding far past our own aspirations,” Raffensperger said at a news conference Thursday. “Today, we are passing the 1 million mark in absentee ballot requests. This is unprecedented.”

Georgia to mail absentee ballot applications to all voters

Raffensperger noted that four years ago, in the last statewide general primary in a presidential election year, a total of about 37,200 absentee ballots were cast.

Voters can return the ballot application by mail and can return their ballots by mail or in a specially established absentee ballot drop box to avoid an in-person trip to the polls and potential exposure to the virus.

Raffensperger’s office says 700,000 ballots have already been mailed to voters. People will still be able to vote in person as well, both during early voting and on election day June 9.