An older woman with short white hair extends an arm holding a small voter sticker toward an open doorway inside a polling place. — A poll worker hands out a voter sticker inside a Gwinnett County polling place.

Gwinnett County voters cast 237,456 early ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election, a 25.4% increase from the same point in the 2022 midterm and the largest percentage gain among five counties serving North Atlanta.

Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cherokee and Forsyth together accounted for 976,459 early votes in the Saturday morning update from Georgia Votes, an independent tracker using state voter data. Every county in that group was ahead of its 2022 pace.

Statewide, early participation reached 2,823,265, including 2,704,624 in-person votes and 118,641 mail ballots. Georgia had already broken its midterm record for in-person early voting on Thursday, according to the secretary of state’s office. Early in-person voting ended Friday, Oct. 30.

How the five counties compare

The figures below include accepted mail ballots and in-person early votes recorded in Georgia Votes’ 6:38 a.m. update on Oct. 31. Both years are compared at the same number of days before Election Day. These are countywide totals, including communities outside North Atlanta.

County	2022 early votes	2026 early votes	Increase
Gwinnett	189,300	237,456	25.4%
Cherokee	73,431	86,275	17.5%
DeKalb	211,057	238,838	13.2%
Fulton	303,202	339,024	11.8%
Forsyth	69,316	74,866	8.0%

Fulton had the largest number of early votes among the five counties. Gwinnett added 48,156 over its comparable 2022 count, the biggest numerical increase in the group as well as the fastest percentage growth. Cherokee followed with a 17.5% increase.

The percentages measure growth in the number of ballots, not the share of registered voters who participated. The counts remain unofficial and can change as counties update voting records.

A changing early electorate

Asian voters made up 10.2% of Forsyth’s early electorate, up from 5.8% at the same point in 2022. In Gwinnett, Hispanic voters accounted for 8.8%, compared with 4.6% four years ago; the Asian share rose to 9.3% from 6.1%.

Higher early voting totals do not by themselves establish higher final turnout. Across Georgia, 435,133 people who voted on Election Day in 2022 had already voted early this year. Another 634,502 early voters had not participated in the 2022 general election, according to Georgia Votes. That group is not necessarily made up of first-time voters.

The participation figures also do not reveal candidate choices. Georgia has no party registration, and neither a voter’s race nor a county’s past election results establishes how that person voted this year.

A closer look at South Forsyth and northern Gwinnett

Asian voters accounted for 19.4% of early ballots in House District 25, which covers parts of South Forsyth and North Fulton. That was up from 12.3% at the same point before the 2022 midterm.

In House District 99, serving portions of the Suwanee, Duluth and Sugar Hill area, Asian voters made up 20.1% of early participants, compared with 13.8% in 2022. In both districts, roughly one in five early voters was Asian.

Much of that change was already evident in the 2024 presidential election, when the Asian share of early voters reached 18.5% in District 25 and 20.3% in District 99. This year’s shares are close to those levels.

Georgia Votes compares participation at the same number of days before each election. To account for redistricting, it places 2022 early voters within today’s district boundaries using where they lived then. These are district figures, not totals for entire cities.

Tuesday’s voting hours and locations

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and voters in line before closing may cast a ballot. In-person voters must use their assigned Election Day polling place, which may differ from the location they used for early voting. Check the address on the state’s My Voter Page.

For domestic absentee voters, the county elections office must receive the completed ballot by 7 p.m. Tuesday; a postmark alone is not enough. The secretary of state’s office says voters may hand-deliver their completed ballot to their county elections office. The early-voting drop-box period has ended; military and overseas voters have separate deadlines.