Up To One Quarter of All Georgians Have Already Voted!

Data from the Georgia Secretary of State on the status of early voting in that state shows that a staggering 825,923 Georgians have already voted.

In the 2004 presidential election, 3.3 million Georgians voted. That means that fully 25% of the number of ballots cast in Georgian in 2004 have already been cast. We predict a considerably higher total turnout in Georgia this year, but the number of early voters is still quite impressive.

The demographics of this early voting tsunami continue to favor Obama, with a very high proportion of African-American and female voters, as shown below.

Polls of Georgia give McCain a small lead, but if those polls have underweighted blacks, then McCain's lead disappears.

Here's the data, through yesterday, from Georgia on early voting:

GEORGIA EARLY VOTING (thru 10/21/08)
Early votes: 825,923
Percent white: 60.67%
Percent black: 35.57% (Blacks make up 29% of Ga. registered voters)
Percent women: 56.1%
Percent men: 41.1%
2008 early vote as % of 2004 total vote: 25.01%