The Secretary of State is now posting early voting stats on the website daily. Link is here:
http://sos.georgia.gov/...
My quick analysis after the fold.
41k people voted on Tuesday (including new absentee ballots).
Total number of voters is now 16.4% of total voters in 2004. At this rate (and the week before the election has more locations than the next week and a half), total early voting will be about 1/3 of total votes cast in 2004.
9.7% of registered voters have already cast ballots, with a much higher rate of African American women (12.9% of registered voters) and men (11.1% of registered voters) having cast early ballots. By comparison, only 8.7% of registered white men have voted early.
29.2% of all registered voters (as of 10/1) are African American. This may increase slightly after all the applications are processed.
African Americans make up 36.7% of the early voting population.
Turnout is highest (out of top 5 counties) in Dekalb county, where 20% of the population that voted in 2004 has already voted.
Again, the data indicates much higher enthusiasm to "bank the vote" for Obama than McCain, which as indicated on the main page yesterday, is contrary to early voting in prior elections.
If you like this analysis and want updates daily, let me know, since I'll be tracking it.
Thanks, and let's win Georgia for Obama and elect Jim Martin to get to that magic 60 seat level in the Senate!