It Wasn’t Just A 2020 Trend — Americans Are Continuing to Embrace Early Voting Options
Early voting options are available in most states, and voters across the country are continuing to take advantage, as they did in 2020.
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Early voting may not have been invented in 2020 but thanks to COVID-19, it was the year Americans embraced it: A record number of Americans voted early, increasing the share of ballots cast in person before Election Day by 7 percentage points compared to 2016.
We’re not in a presidential election year, so we can’t necessarily expect as many votes cast as there were in 2020. But early turnout this year does suggest that voting early has become voters’ new normal.
Just a week before Election Day, over 28 million Americans had cast their ballots early, according to the U.S. Elections Project. In Georgia, energized voters hit a record-breaking turnout in their fifth day of early voting, with almost 300,000 more ballots cast than during the same period in 2018. Some states even surpassed 2018 early turnout figures a week before Election Day, including Virginia and Michigan, which have expanded access to mail-in ballots since 2018..
Now that it’s officially Election Day and the early voting period has wrapped up, here’s the breakdown of how early voting looks so far on Election Day this year compared to certified totals in 2018:
But with increased participation has come increased scrutiny. Georgians, for example, are feeling the brunt of a new law where citizens can challenge a voter’s eligibility on the state’s voting rolls an unlimited number of times. After the 2020 election, many Republican legislators successfully passed voting restrictions that targeted early voting, so it’s possible that voters in other states will face similar obstacles.
Still, even as some voters may face challenges to cast their ballots early, election officials across the country are endorsing the practice. Even in places like Arizona and Michigan, where many politicians and candidates have continued to decry mail-in ballots over the last two years, state Republican parties have actively encouraged voters to use drop boxes and use mail-voting options. All of that is to say, it’s clear that even some GOP leaders are coming around to accept what this year’s early voting patterns suggest: Pandemic-era voting practices are here to stay.