Headline Roundup • October 19th, 2022
High Turnout as Early Voting Begins in Georgia and Other States
2022 Elections,Elections,Voting Rights And Voter Fraud,2022 Georgia Gubernatorial Election,2022 Georgia Senate Election,Georgia,Stacey Abrams,Brian Kemp,Herschel Walker,Raphael Warnock
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Almost 2.5 million voters had cast ballots in the 2022 midterm elections by Wednesday, according to CNN (Left bias). That includes almost 300,000 in Georgia alone, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s (Lean Left bias) turnout tracker.
For Context: Turnout in Georgia, which is weighing high-profile Senate and gubernatorial races, has already overtaken 2018’s midterm turnout by tens of thousands of votes. However, Georgia was also the center of controversy in 2021 when state Republicans passed a sweeping “election integrity” law that President Joe Biden called “Jim Crow in the 21st Century.”
How the Center Covered It: Coverage from center-rated outlets like BBC (Center bias) tended to focus on high turnout and Georgia’s high-profile elections.
How the Left Covered It: Coverage from the left was mixed; CNN compared data on absentee ballot returns to previous years, and an MSNBC (Left bias) headline said high turnout “could be wake up call for Republicans.”
How the Right Covered It: Some right-rated outlets and conservative voices framed high turnout in Georgia as evidence that Republican election reform did not suppress voting. National Review (Right bias) specifically singled out gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) for “repeated claims that her opponent, incumbent governor Brian Kemp, is engaged in widespread voter suppression.”
Featured Coverage of this Story
Cheney Orr | Reuters
Turnout from Georgia’s first day of early voting set a new state record for a midterm election, nearly doubling the figure from the same time period in the previous midterms, state election officials said Tuesday.
More than 131,000 Georgia voters cast ballots since early voting began Monday, according to the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The figure represents an 85% boost over the 2018 midterms, when nearly 71,000 early votes were cast on Day One, the office said.
Georgia’s latest tally is also nearly as large as...
The first day of early voting in Georgia set a midterm turnout record, with over 133,000 in-person voters casting their ballots, an early sign of strong interest in this year’s elections.
Turnout on Monday far exceeded the last midterms in 2018, when about 71,000 people showed up at the start of early voting, according to state election data.
The fast start put Georgia on pace to surpass the 3.9 million voters who cast ballots four years ago, though turnout appears unlikely to reach the 5 million voters who participated in the 2020...
Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
Conservative Twitter users slammed Democrats for having once claimed that updated Georgia election laws were "Jim Crow 2.0" after state election officials reported this week that early voting numbers this year smashed turnout in the 2018 midterms.
In 2021, President Joe Biden, fellow Democratic lawmakers and major media outlets attacked a new Georgia election integrity law as an attempt by GOP officials to suppress the vote, particularly among the African American community.
The Democrats were so pointed in their attacks on the legislation that Biden referred to it in March 2021 as...
