There’s no such thing as Election Day. Really what we have is an election season.
As of yesterday, 36 states had started some form of early voting, and two more start today. Let’s take a quick look at those states, and what we know about the early vote.
Who is voting?
North Carolina was first out of the gate in September, followed by Alabama. Just today, Ohio and New Mexico opened up early voting. In alpha order, here are all the states voting now:
Alabama
Arkansas
California
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Iowa
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
New Jersey
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New York
North Dakota
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
Washington D.C.
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Early voting numbers
According to the U.S. Elections Project, 3.3 million people have already voted in this election, which represents a HUGE change from this point in 2016. (This time four years ago, just shy of 75,000 voters had cast their ballots.) Now, yes, because of the pandemic, many more early voting options became available this year that weren’t available in 2016. But, they also note that the sheer number of votes cast already show a very high interest in voting.
The other interesting data point they shared is that not only have the Democrats requested more mail-in ballots than the Republicans, but they are also returning their ballots at a higher rate than the GOP.
Taking Florida as one example. 2,446,640 Democrats have requested a mail ballot to only 1,678,787 requests from Republicans. On top of that 11.5% of Democrats have returned their ballots, compared to only 8.7% of Republicans. Check out the U.S. Elections Project recent report for more stats on early voting HERE.
I know I’m delighted to hear that early voting is strong, but you and I both know we must continue to fight to get as many people to vote in this election as possible. We can’t just win. We have to win with a margin so big, no Republican will be able to dispute the will of the American people.
Related: Have you made a plan to vote?
Mini Tip of the Day: Add a signature to your personal email account, with a message like: “Today is a good day to make a plan to vote.” Include a link like Vote.Org
Get the rest of my Mini Tips here: 19 Quick Ways to Turn Out the Vote in 2020
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