It’s Election Day.
Just over 4 million Georgians have voted early or by mail-in ballot, heading into today’s General Election. Gabriel Sterling, the Secretary of State’s Office COO, told WABE Monday that he expects between 800,000 and 1.3 million additional votes cast on Election Day.
If you haven’t voted yet, today is your last chance to cast a ballot in the Nov. 5 General Election. To find your polling place, visit the Secretary of State’s My Voter Page. And check out our Georgia Decides election guide to see how the candidates on your ballot responded to our policy questions.
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. If you’re in line at your poll at 7 p.m., you will be able to vote. You must bring a photo ID, but don’t wear campaign paraphernalia or bring a gun.
The U.S. Justice Department issued an advisory saying that if voters experience any threats, intimidation or violence at the polls, to first call 9-1-1 and alert local authorities, and afterwards report the issue to the FBI.
📫 If you voted by mail, you can track your ballot via the My Voter Page. If the Secretary of State’s Office hasn’t received your mail-in ballot by today, you may want to consider canceling it and voting in person. Explain your situation at your polling place, and election officials can assist you. They will double-check whether your ballot was received, and, if not, they’ll invalidate it, so you can cast a ballot in person.
Similarly, if you requested an absentee ballot but have not yet mailed it or dropped it off at your county elections office, you can surrender it at your polling station, so that you can cast a ballot in person. It’s best to bring your ballot — If you do not, you can still vote, but must sign a document that invalidates your requested absentee ballot.
📸: Claire Becknell
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When will we have presidential election results?
Metro Atlanta elections officials in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett Counties told us what to expect on Election Day — and as final ballots are tallied after the polls close.
STORY: What to expect on Election Day.
Most of the votes in Georgia will be counted and publicly reported tonight by 8 p.m. But if the presidential race is super tight, it may be several days before a victor emerges, because the counties have through Friday to count outstanding overseas, military, and provisional ballots, along with absentee ballots that need curing.
The statewide deadline for the counties to deliver their certified vote tallies to the Secretary of State’s Office is next Tuesday, Nov. 12.
Other swing states may also take a few days to report their final presidential vote, if the margin is close. The Harris campaign expects “near complete” results by midnight on Tuesday from Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan, with “partial results” from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona – and more swing-state tallies finalized or close to finalized by Wednesday, according to The Hill and a Harris campaign memo shared on X.
Follow our Election Day Live Blog
We’ll be bringing you live updates all day from election officials and voter voices across metro Atlanta via our Election Day Live Blog.
We’ve got our eyes on a number of races – not just the top of the ticket. In Atlanta, the Post 3 At-Large city council seat will likely go to a runoff. It’s a five-way race, which makes it unlikely that any one candidate will secure more than the 50% of the vote that’s required to avoid a runoff election.
So, if you thought it was almost over, sorry. Atlantans likely will have a runoff election on Dec. 3 to look forward to. For those planning ahead, the last day to request an absentee ballot for any Georgia runoff election is Nov. 22.
Of course, runoff elections could be avoided if Georgia used ranked-choice voting, which is something we’ve written about before.
Watch parties
What are your Election Day plans? Feel free to write me at alessandro@atlantaciviccircle.org to let us know how your voting experience went, and where you’ll be watching the vote tallies tonight.
If you’re looking for a watch party, we’ve found a couple that you can register to attend:
– Votelanta watch party at The Gathering Spot, located at 384 Northyards Boulevard.
– Canopy Atlanta watch party at CreateATL, 900 Murphy Avenue SW.
– Abundant Housing Atlanta watch party (starts at 7 p.m.) at Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen & Bar in West Midtown, located at 822 Marietta St. NW. Atlanta City Council candidate Devin Barrington-Ward is hosting.
🍦 Lots of locally-owned restaurants are offering Election Day discounts or freebies. And some are even hosting watch parties. Get the list from our friends at Rough Draft.
👀 Check out our live blog and social media today for updates and info on more watch parties.
Georgia election news: Weekend recap
With Election Day upon us, there was no shortage of local election news over the weekend and into Monday.
Here’s a quick recap:
- A Fulton County judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit filed late Friday evening that aimed to block metro-Atlanta counties from keeping election offices open over the weekend, so voters could drop off absentee ballots after early voting ended on Friday. According to Fulton officials on Monday morning, 305 ballots were delivered this way. The lawsuit only targeted Democratic-leaning metro-Atlanta counties that decided to open their election offices — not, for example, rural and Republican-leaning Walton County, which did the same thing.
- But Fulton elections officials committed what Gabriel Sterling from the Secretary of State’s Office called an “unforced error” when they initially prevented GOP observers, including State Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta), from watching voters hand-deliver those 305 ballots. Keep in mind that much of the election process is open to the public: Anyone can show up tonight to observe vote counting at the Fulton elections hub in Union City.
- In Cobb County, the elections office at first extended its deadline to accept absentee ballots until 5 p.m. Nov. 8 to accommodate voters who requested a ballot by the Oct. 25 deadline, but did not receive their ballot in the mail by Oct. 30. About 3,000 voters were affected, according to this list. HOWEVER, the Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday suspended that deadline extension. That means affected Cobb voters should make a plan to vote in-person or get their ballots to the Cobb County Elections office by 7 p.m. TODAY. The office is located at 995 Roswell St., NE, Marietta, GA.
Housing is on the ballot
🏡 Never before has housing been such a hot topic on the national political stage: Vanishing affordable units, a widespread shortage of homes and apartments, and the expanding wealth gap have forced elected leaders and candidates from the federal level on down to confront the nationwide crisis.
Vice President Kamala Harris has pledged to “end America’s housing shortages” by offering a $25,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers for down-payment assistance, subsidizing the construction of three million new residences, and creating a $40 billion “innovation fund” to spur private-sector homebuilding.
Similarly, former President Donald Trump has promised to “reduce mortgage rates by slashing inflation, open limited portions of federal lands to allow for new home construction, promote homeownership through tax incentives and support for first-time buyers, and cut unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs.”
Read Atlanta Civic Circle’s breakdown of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates’ housing platforms here.
📸: Libby Hobbs
Homestead-exemption ballot question
Georgia voters must also decide whether they support a constitutional amendment that would cap home-value assessment increases at the annual inflation rate statewide. Doing so would limit property tax hikes — but with some caveats. Critics warn the measure could deprive local public school systems of much-needed revenue. “I would not see how this would do anything but further [widen] the income and wealth gap in Atlanta, or across the state,” said Kyle Kessler, of the Center for Civic Innovation.
… and open at-large Atlanta City Council seat In Atlanta, whichever of five citywide candidates wins the city council’s Post 3 At-Large seat will influence how city government envisions the future of its built environment. Read our coverage of their positions on housing here to understand how differently each perceives the housing crisis.
Today’s newsletter was written by Alessandro Marazzi Sasson and Sean Keenan. It was edited by Meredith Hobbs.
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