Mark Niesse, Atlanta Journal-Gazette, October 1, 2018

Many Georgia voters are already mailing in their ballots, locking in their votes five weeks before Election Day.

So far, 9,077 voters have returned absentee ballots, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

These early voters are increasingly African-Americans and women, according to an analysis of voters’ demographic data by Michael McDonald, who runs the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.

Black voters made up 42 percent of all early voters as of Saturday, McDonald said. Black voters account for 30 percent of registered voters in Georgia, but they’ve mailed almost as many ballots as white voters, who have returned 47 percent of absentee ballots.

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“Whites are voting at about the same level as 2014, whereas African-Americans have surged quite a bit, as have other persons of color,” McDonald wrote on Twitter.

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