More than 400,000 cast ballots in early voting in Georgia Senate runoff.

ATLANTA — In the first and only weekend of early voting in the Georgia Senate runoff, tens of thousands of voters cast ballots in the election pitting Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock against Republican challenger Herschel Walker — the last Senate contest of the 2022 midterms.

On Saturday, 70,050 Georgians turned out to vote, utilizing an extra day of early voting resulting from a lawsuit filed by Warnock, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the state Democratic Party. Republicans tried to block the effort in court but were unsuccessful.

Among those who voted Saturday were Georgia residents who told The Washington Post that busy schedules made voting impossible during the week. The lines also included college students home for the Thanksgiving holiday who preferred to vote in person rather than rely on an absentee ballot.

On Sunday, an additional 86,937 people voted. That number combined with voters in select counties who voted before Thanksgiving and the 15,305 mail ballots accepted so far means that a total of 181,711 voters had cast their ballots by the weekend’s end.

By Monday evening — with all 159 counties offering early voting — even more voters had shown up. As of 4:45 p.m., an additional 239,160 voters had cast their ballot, according to Gabriel Sterling, a top official in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. In a brief interview Sterling said Monday’s total number could surpass 250,000, and that even more voters could show up in the days closer to the election.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that he didn't want to be like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and beg for donations on television while he did just that.