Early voting in Georgia and Bulloch County continues to smash records, with less than two weeks of early voting left before Election Day on Nov. 3, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's Office.

By 5 p.m. Monday, 1.65 million residents had cast their ballots — up 156% from the first seven days in 2016.

Across the state, 955,994 had cast in-person ballots, while 700,364 had voted absentee by mail. That’s compared to 603,711 in-person ballots cast for the same time frame in 2016 and 96,057 absentee ballots. Across the nation, 29.6 million had voted as of Monday afternoon through a combination of early, in-person voting and absentee ballots, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

In the first week of early voting last week, 2,923 Bulloch County residents voted in-person in the elections office at the County Annex, Election Supervisor Patricia Lanier Jones said.

In 2016, the previous presidential election year, 2,347 Bulloch voters cast in-person ballots during the first week of early voting before the general election. In 2018, with the election of a governor, the number was 2,795 in-person voters the first week.

As of mid-afternoon Friday, 7,640 absentee ballots had been mailed to Bulloch County voters’ home addresses at their request, and 3,460 had been completed and returned. In all of the fall 2016 general election, 1,617 absentee ballots were cast in Bulloch County.

“Georgia is a leader in election access,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “Notwithstanding the pandemic, voters in the Peach State can take advantage of no-excuse absentee ballot voting by mail or through a secure drop box; three weeks of early, in-person voting; or Election Day voting.”

On the first day of early voting this year in Georgia, more than 128,000 people went to the polls, many of them waiting in line for hours. The Secretary of States’ office said Monday's total was 133,718 as of 5 p.m. Monday.

Voting this week at Georgia Southern

Meanwhile, Room 1042 in the Russell Union on the Georgia Southern University campus will open as an early voting location for three days this week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.

The County Annex location will also remain open for early voting those same hours, Monday through Friday through Oct. 30. It will be joined by the Honey Bowen Building, 1 Max Lockwood Drive, Oct. 26–30, also 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

Saturday voting will be available this coming Saturday only, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., at both the County Annex and the Honey Bowen Building.