Georgia reports more than 940,000 absentee ballot requests for Senate runoff

(CNN) More than 940,000 mail-in ballots have been requested in Georgia for the January 5 runoff election that will decide which party controls the Senate, Gabriel Sterling, the state's voting systems implementation manager, said Monday.

That includes 604,255 people who are eligible to receive mail-in ballots automatically, according to Sterling. For comparison, 1,322,529 absentee ballots were cast in November's general election, according to a release from the Georgia Secretary of State's office.

Sterling said that 1,040 ballots have been returned so far, a "small trickle that we expect to get larger soon."

Georgia voters are required to request absentee ballots again for the runoff, even if they voted absentee in November, except those over the age of 65, members of the military or physically disabled people who requested absentee ballots for the entire election cycle.

Republicans are struggling to encourage voters to back incumbent Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue as President Donald Trump continues to cast doubt on the results of the presidential election.

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