ATLANTA — Election season is underway in Georgia, and you can even track its (very, very) early progress.
Early in-person voting doesn't begin until next Tuesday (Oct. 15), but county election offices were allowed to begin mailing out absentee ballots on Oct. 7, and some of the voters who requested those have already turned them in.
The Georgia Secretary of State's Office is operating an election data hub where you can track turnout numbers for the Peach State ahead of the Nov. 5 Election Day.
RELATED: 11Alive 2024 election county-by-county voter guide | Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb and Clayton
On that website, you can check out specific turnout data for absentee voting and early in-person voting (once it starts) as well as total turnout. There are also breakdowns by county, race, gender, age group and other data points.
Voting data so far
As of Friday, there are already more than 5,200 absentee ballots returned and accepted -- votes cast, essentially -- in Georgia for the 2024 election. That rounds up to 0.001% of Peach State's 7.1 million voters, though it appears the Secretary of State's Office site can't display a number that small because it lists turnout at 0.1%.
According to additional data on absentee voting, there were about 250,000 absentee ballots requested. So far, as of noon on Friday, 5,306 of those were returned and of those returned there were 5,278 accepted.
Of the returned ballots, about 2,800 are mail-in absentee votes and about 2,500 are electronically submitted votes (military and overseas voters are allowed this option).
Those voting with a mail-in ballot can submit at a drop-box or send it in by mail -- if they choose the mail, they're encouraged to do so ASAP as there are ongoing issues with USPS delays in Georgia.