Number of early votes cast surpasses early-vote total in 2018 midterm election

Americans have cast more ballots ahead of Election Day than they did during early voting before the last midterm election, continuing a trend of increasingly relying on early voting despite vocal objections from some Republicans.

On Saturday, the number of ballots submitted surpassed 39.1 million, the number cast in 2018, according to data maintained by the United States Elections Project. This year’s total will grow because election officials are still receiving ballots through the mail and some states allow in-person early voting through the weekend. As of Sunday morning, voters had cast more than 39.2 million early votes.

Former president Donald Trump and his allies have attacked early voting, especially vote-by-mail programs, prompting some Republicans to give up a practice that they have embraced in some states for decades. A countervailing force seems to have offset that opposition — more opportunities to vote early.

Meanwhile, the rules for early voting in some places are changing. Unlike in 2018, California, Nevada, Vermont and D.C. are now automatically mailing ballots to all registered voters, and Michigan and Pennsylvania are now offering no-excuse voting by mail.

For this cycle, nearly 20 million votes have been cast in 19 states that have voter registration by party identification, providing insight into who is voting early. In those states, 43 percent of the early votes so far have come from voters registered as Democrats, 34 percent from Republicans and 23 percent from those who are unaffiliated or belong to a third party.
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The 19 states include Democratic-dominated states such as California, heavily Republican states such as Oklahoma and battleground states such as Pennsylvania.

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