More than 1 million voters are expected to vote via absentee ballots in the Georgia Senate runoff race, according to The Hill, which signals an important voting trend around the power of mail-in voting directly related to the past election season.

Georgia voters and the nation are closely watching the highly contested race where Democratic challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff face Republican incumbents Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Joe Biden will stump in Georgia on Tuesday during day two of early voting in the Peach State in an effort to help boost favorability for Warnock and Ossoff.

In Georgia around 1.2 million mail-in ballots were requested while around 200,000 have been submitted to their respective local board of elections. As many as 67 percent of those who requested mail-in ballots for November’s election requested them again for January’s runoffs, according to the Journal from U.S. Elections Project.

Runoff races in Georgia have historically had low voter turnout, but the numbers show that voters are returning to higher levels of civic participation, attributed to on the ground organizers like Stacey Abrams, LaTosha Brown and Nse Ufot who made with Black and brown voters a priority. About 33 percent of Georgians are Black according to the Census, which rates higher than the national average at 13 percent. Black Georgians also lean more Democratic.

Due to the onset of the coronavirus, mail-in voting in the primary season and the general election was heavily relied upon than previous than years before, giving voters who usually are unable to vote because of work schedules or lack of accessibility, the opportunity to make their voices heard.

It is one of the main arguments why voter suppression occurs in areas with large Black populations. Election officials in Cobb County will audit voter signatures on absentee ballot, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, due to pressure from Trump’s administration over baseless voter fraud claims.

According to the Pew Research Center, the Georgia’s absentee ballot numbers are on trend with the national general election where 46 percent of voters opted for mail-in ballots while 54 percent say they voted in person in November. While Black people were less likely to vote by mail, they were more likely to wait in line to vote over an hour according to the study.

An estimated 160 million people voted in the election, with 101 million voting prior to Election Day through early voting and mail-in ballots, PBS NewsHour, reports.

SEE ALSO:

Stacey Abrams Helps Seal A Biden-Harris Victory As One Of Georgia’s Electoral Voters

Georgia Officials Add 2 Voting Sites In Cobb County After Voter Suppression Claims

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