Georgia runoff results - live: Polls close as incumbent Warnock battles Walker for crucial Senate seat

It’s official, moments after polls closed in Georgia, we have our first counties sharing voter totals, though it’s still only a few hundred thousand votes, with just 10 per cent of counties reporting.

As expected, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, who currently holds the lead in this provisional total, is carrying urban counties near the cities of Atlanta, Augusta, and Macon, while Herschel Walker is winning in redder, more rural counties.

Follow the latest prelimary tallies here, based on Associated Press data.

And here is the state of Georgia’s official elections counter.

Polls are officially closed in Georgia for the runoff race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, though those in line now will still be able to cast their choice in the Senate race.

It’s unclear when we’ll know who won.

Unofficial results will be posted online shortly, but official tallies depend on turnout and how quickly individual counties share their voter data with state authorities.

We’ll be monitoring all the latest developments.

Eric Garcia has more information.

The large number of people who voted early means that results might come earlier than expected.

Polls in Georgia open at 7:00 am and close at 7:00 pm on Tuesday. Voters who are still in line by 7:00 pm will still be allowed to vote.

Results of the race will likely be known earlier than in the 2021 runoff, due largely to the fact that many voters have already cast their ballot.

The large number of people who voted early means that results might come earlier than expected.

The Justice Department plans to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in four counties in Georgia today, the department said in a statement.

Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Civil Rights Division has regularly monitored elections in the field in jurisdictions around the country to protect the rights of voters. The Civil Rights Division enforces the federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all citizens to access the ballot.

For this election, the Civil Rights Division will monitor for compliance with the federal voting rights laws on Election Day in four jurisdictions: Cobb County, Fulton County, Gwinnett County, and Macon-Bibb County. Monitors will include personnel from the Civil Rights Division and from the US Attorneys’ Offices.

The Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section enforces the civil provisions of federal statutes that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Acts.

Donald Trump remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party, meaning its elected officials must answer for every egregious statement or call to subvert the law he makes. The difference is that now, after two impeachments and suffering a crushing loss in 2020, he no longer offers them many benefits. Rather, every utterance he makes reminds voters why they don’t vote for Republicans.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Georgia’s Senate runoff, writes Eric Garcia.

He holds no office and his popularity is waning. But Republicans are stuck with his candidates and having to answer for his every word

“This is a mini referendum on the value, or lack thereof, of a Trump endorsement,” says CBS News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett

Black voters say the choice is stark: Warnock, the senior minister of Martin Luther King’s Atlanta church, echoes traditional liberal notions of the Black experience; and Walker, a University of Georgia football icon, speaks the language of white cultural conservatism and mocks Warnock’s interpretations of King, among other matters.

Raphael Warnock is the first Black U.S. senator from Georgia, having broken the color barrier with a special election victory in January 2021

The results of the AP VoteCast survey illustrate some of the challenges each candidate faces on Tuesday.

Herschel Walker will need to turn out a GOP base that wasn’t enamored with him to start with, and do it without the more popular Governor Brian Kemp on the ballot.

Raphael Warnock must get his coalition of some lower-propensity voting groups to turn out.

And both candidates have to motivate voters despite a predetermined balance of power in Washington.

The extended Senate campaign in Georgia gives Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker a second chance to persuade voters to send them to Washington

Georgia voters on Tuesday are set to decide the final Senate contest in the country, choosing between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican football legend Herschel Walker after a four-week runoff blitz that has drawn a flood of outside spending to an increasingly personal fight.

Georgia voters are set to decide the final Senate contest in the country

More than 800,000 people have voted so far in person on Election Day in Georgia according to Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer at the Georgia secretary of state’s office.

That number is believed to be a conservative estimate and the total will likely top 1 million people. Approximately 1.9 million people voted before election day.

He said that voting had run smoothly all day and on Twitter said that wait times were down to around two minutes.