US presidential election

Early voting hits record figures in Georgia

Article published on the 2008-11-02 Latest update 2008-11-03 11:07 TU

Barack Obama with family and John McCain
(Photo: Reuters)

In the US state of Georgia, one of the 34 states that is allowing early voting, two million people have already voted ahead of the 4 November pollig day for the presidential election. Officials said that when the early voting polling stations closed last Friday, 35 per cent of registered voters had already voted.

This represents a sharp rise on early voting figures in 2004 when only 20 per cent of registered voters used the early voting option.

Campaigning by the two principal candidates continued this weekend.

Barack Obama's team released a new advertisement that emphasises McCain's endorsement by Vice-President Dick Cheney, trying to exploit the low levels of popularity of the current administration.

The campaign manager of McCain was predicting a comeback saying that the Republican candidate was "increasing his margins in almost every state in the country".

RFI's David Page talked to voters in New Mexico to see what they think of early voting.