Early voting is reaching such levels that some polls in Georgia could become a “ghost town” on Election Day.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — Flags at the Mountain Park Activities Building flew with the message “Vote Here” not only in English but also in Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese as a steady stream flowed through the doors for their ballots to cast the election in 2024.

One by one, voters who went to the polls Thursday contributed to what has become huge pile of early ballots in the important swing state of Georgia. Early voting, scheduled to end Friday, was so strong that nearly 4 million ballots were cast before Election Day arrives on Tuesday.

“I usually try to vote early because I'm a mail carrier and it's hard for me to get here on an election day,” said Mike King of Lilburn, who voted for Trump on Thursday, before scattering leaves as he sat in his red pickup drove off.

Voters like King are one reason why Early Voting Records have broken down not just in Georgia and other presidential battlegrounds like North Carolina, but also in states like New Jersey and Louisiana where there are no major elections. During the pandemic in 2020, then-President Donald Trump railed against early voting and mail-in voting, claiming they were part of a conspiracy to steal the election from him. He stuck around in 2022 after incorrectly blaming early voting for his 2020 defeat.

In both elections, Republicans largely eschewed early voting, preferring to do so on Election Day. This year Trump emphasized early voting and his supporters respond. So far, Republicans have flooded polling places in places that allow early in-person voting. Although they also increased their mail-in voting, the rate was significantly lower.

“The Trump effect is real,” said Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections, a conservative group that focuses on electoral politics.

So far, about 64 million people have voted in the 2024 election, representing more than a third of the total number of voters in 2020. Not all states register voters by party, but in those that do, the number of first-time voters is slightly higher than Republican Democratic, according to AP election data.

Of course, early voting data does not provide any information about who will win an election. It doesn't tell you who voters support, just basic demographic information and sometimes party affiliation. One demographic appears unusually energized by dominating early voting, only to then stop turning out voters on Election Day.

Campaigns encourage early voting because it allows them to “bank” their most reliable supporters and frees up resources to attract lower-propensity supporters on Election Day.

“I largely viewed the idea of ​​going back to Election Day as an attempt to put toothpaste back in a tube,” Snead said.

Election officials say early voting has already brought in impressive numbers. In North Carolina, all but two of the 25 western counties most damaged by Hurricane Helene in late September are seeing higher percentages of early attendance compared to 2020.

Statewide, more than 3.7 million people had cast early in-person votes early Friday, surpassing the number of first in-person ballots for all of 2020, the North Carolina State Board of Elections said. Early in-person voting ends Saturday afternoon in the state.

“Hurricane Helene did not stop us from voting,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the state board’s executive director and the top elections official in this swing state. She added that voters are grateful and “we're seeing a lot of civility.”

So many people voted early in Georgia that a state election official says there could be a “ghost town” at the polls on Election Day.

There is no doubt that part of this is thanks to Trump. His rallies feature large signs reading “VOTE EARLY!” and others have also urged Republicans to vote before Tuesday, even by mail.

“This election is too important to wait!” proclaimed a flyer sent to a voter in Georgia by the Elon Musk-funded America PAC. “President Trump is counting on patriots like you to request an absentee ballot and submit your vote today.”

Tona Barnes is one person who has taken this message to heart. Instead of voting on Election Day, she voted early for the first time on Thursday in the northern Atlanta suburb of Marietta.

“He keeps promoting early voting,” she said of Trump.

Others in Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, say they vote early for convenience.

Ashenafi Arega, who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday at the Mountain Park Activities Building in suburban Gwinnett County, said he cast his vote early “to save time.”

“I think the line will be long on Election Day,” said Arega, who owns an import business. “It will be discouraging.”

Gabe Sterling, chief operating officer for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said Wednesday that the state has already reached two-thirds of the total voter turnout in the 2020 election, while Georgia reached a record nearly 10% 5 million votes cast.

“There is a possibility it could be a ghost town on Election Day,” Sterling said. “During the COVID-19 crisis, fewer than a million people attended in 2020, despite all opportunities to vote before Election Day.”

Almost as many people had voted earlier in Georgia at this point in 2020, but turnout was different. During the pandemic, Georgia briefly allowed voters to request mail-in ballots online without sending in a form with a handwritten signature and allowed counties to set up many drive-thru drop-off boxes. But fueled by Trump's persistence that he was cheatedonly Republican lawmakers allowed severely limited dropboxes go forward, New deadlines for postal voting applications introduced and again asked for a hand-signed absence request form.

This and other laws in Georgia sparked anti-Republican protests trying to suppress voices. Republicans said strong early voter turnout in 2024 proves that wasn't the case.

“I think this refutes the idea that some pretty basic security measures are somehow deterring people from voting,” said Josh McKoon, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

But Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party, rejects those statements, saying the recent fights over the State Election Board's rules that ended with a Judge rejects the rulesproving that Republicans are preparing to denounce the legitimacy of any vote they don't win in Georgia.

“I think there's no doubt that these people were trying to confuse the situation a little bit in order to have something that they could potentially point to later,” Olasanoye said.

Republicans are excited about voter turnout in heavily Republican counties, reaching nearly two-thirds of active voters in some cases. As of Thursday, about 39% of voters in the majority-black Democratic stronghold of Augusta-Richmond County had cast ballots, while nearly 54% of voters in the neighboring Republican suburb of Columbia County had voted.

“Just from a winners and losers standpoint, the more votes I have in the bank by Friday, the fewer votes I have to bring to the polls on Tuesday to win,” McKoon said.

However, Olasanoye expressed confidence that Harris would expand her coalition and still win.

“Democrats and the vice president, we’re just fine,” he said.

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Associated Press reporters Gary Robertson and Makiya Seminera contributed from Raleigh, North Carolina.