ATLANTA — 11Alive is breaking down some of the most commonly asked questions surrounding Election Day. Among the topics on residents' minds is just how many registered voters there are in Georgia.
How many registered voters in Georgia are there?
According to the state's Election Data Hub, there are roughly 8.2 million registered voters in the state (8,249,917 to be more precise).
However, it's worth noting that registered voters don't necessarily mean active voters. To be considered active, you need to have voted sometime in the last five years. For more information on the specifics, check out the section below.
Anyway, if you take a look at the number of active voters, the number is closer to 7.2 million (7,243,942 to be more precise).
Active voters vs. total voters
As you can find at this data hub produced by the Georgia Secretary of State's Office, the number of total "active" voters is a bit smaller than our number above: 7,007,154.
That's because the state distinguishes between any voter and "active" voters.
This has to do with some regulations about when and how the state can remove people from the voter rolls. Some voters, who haven't participated in elections recently, get moved to "inactive" status (they can still go vote and be returned to "active" status, but being classified as inactive does move them closer to eventually being removed from voter rolls.)
The Secretary of State's Office confirmed for 11Alive the number on the state data hub is in fact just active voters. They told us the number of active voters is actually a little larger than displayed - 7,008,203 - and that there are additionally 858,474 inactive voters.
That's how we come to a total population of registered voters in Georgia as 7,866,677. Any of them will be able to vote on Tuesday in the runoff - you don't have to vote in November to be eligible for the runoff, and in fact independent trackers report just under 78,000 people who didn't vote in November have already voted in the runoff.
But, new provisions in state law determining the runoff timeline essentially meant no new unregistered voters were able join the voter rolls if they waited until the midterms to do so. That's because the last day to register to vote in time for the runoff was Nov. 7 -- the day before the general election.