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WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Voters in Georgia turned out in record numbers as the battleground state opened early voting for the Nov. 5 presidential election between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, state officials said on Tuesday.

At least 252,000 voters had cast ballots at early-voting sites as of 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT), nearly double the 136,000 who participated in the first day of early voting in the 2020 election, said Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's No. 2 election official. "Spectacular turnout," he wrote on social media.

Trump, at a campaign event in Atlanta, expressed enthusiasm for the early vote in Georgia.

"The votes are coming in, and they're coming in at a nice level for us," he said.

Early voting, either in person or by mail, has become increasingly popular with U.S. voters. Nearly 1 in 7 voters cast their ballots ahead of Election Day in 2020, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab.

However, many Republicans opposed the dramatic expansion of mail voting that year, saying it was less secure than in-person voting, and Trump cited false claims of mail ballot fraud as he sought unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

Some Republicans continue to insist that voters should be able to cast their ballots only in person on Election Day, though party officials are encouraging supporters to vote ahead of time.

Nationwide, 5.5 million Americans have already voted this year, according to Election Lab. By contrast, 27 million people had cast their ballots at this point in the 2020 election as voters sought to avoid crowded polling places during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like some other states, Georgia has tightened its mail-voting laws since then, requiring voters who want to cast an absentee ballot to provide proof of identity and limiting the number of places they can deposit their ballots.

Georgia is one of the seven competitive battleground states expected to play a decisive role in deciding the election.

A Georgia judge on Tuesday temporarily halted a rule requiring clerks to verify vote totals by hand counting ballots in the 2024 election.

Judge Robert McBurney said in his Tuesday ruling that it was appropriate to pause the change because it introduced fresh uncertainty into the process just weeks before Election Day.

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Reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Matthew Lewis and Sonali Paul