As of Monday afternoon, about 30 million Americans have already voted in the midterms, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. That counts mail ballots returned and early in-person votes together. It’s about a quarter of the nearly 122 million people who voted in all of 2022. Michael McDonald, who runs the tracker, told NPR last week that state by state, early turnout so far is running ahead of 2022 and 2018.
The number I’d watch is a different one. Election offices have sent out, or taken requests for, about 59.6 million mail ballots, and about 15 million have come back. Some of the rest are already in the mail or haven’t been reported yet. Some of those voters will vote in person, and some won’t vote at all. But millions of ballots are still sitting at home, on kitchen tables and stuck to refrigerators. For those, the clock matters now.
The Postal Service recommends mailing a ballot “AT LEAST ONE WEEK before” your election office has to receive it. In most states, a ballot from a voter at home has to arrive by Election Day. Election Day is November 3. A week before that is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 27.
A few states set the deadline even earlier. In Louisiana, a mailed ballot has to reach your parish registrar by 4:30 p.m. on Monday, November 2. If you’re mailing from Louisiana, mail it today. Look up your own state’s return deadline on your state or county election website. It takes two minutes, and it’s the date that counts.
After tomorrow, don’t drop your ballot in a mailbox. Take it to a drop box or your election office, wherever your state allows. Some states have no drop boxes, and some close hand delivery before Election Day (in Alabama it’s the day before). Or vote in person, and bring your mail ballot with you. Many states ask you to hand it in at the polls, and without it you may get a provisional ballot instead.
Some states count a ballot that arrives after Election Day if it was postmarked by then. Even there, the date on the postmark is a trap. The Postal Service says that date “may not necessarily match” the day you dropped the ballot off, because some mail doesn’t reach a processing plant the same day it’s mailed. You can fix that. If mailing is your only option, take your ballot to the counter at a post office and ask for a manual postmark. It’s free, and it carries that day’s date.
This isn’t a hypothetical. Earlier this month I cited a Brookings study of three states’ primaries. It found that mail ballots rejected for arriving late roughly doubled after the postal changes, though from a small base of about 1 percent. That’s one study, but the fix works either way: get your ballot back early.
In the 14 states where the tracker has age data, about half of the early votes so far came from people over 65. Fewer than one in twenty came from people 25 and under. That’s normal. Older voters usually go first, and a lot of younger voters wait for Election Day. But it shows who the count hasn’t heard from yet. If you’re young and haven’t voted, you’re the part of the count that hasn’t come in.
In the 27 states that report early voters’ party registration, registered Democrats make up 45 percent of early voters so far and registered Republicans 31 percent. That isn’t a result. These are registrations, not votes, and no results have been released. In recent elections Democrats have tended to vote early and Republicans on Election Day. NPR’s reporter put it plainly: early voting data is “often a poor predictor of final results.” Anyone telling you who’s winning from these numbers is guessing.
This campaign has no ads, no field office, and no list of voters. It has you. So here is the one thing I’ll ask this week. Find one person you know who hasn’t voted yet, and ask whether they have a plan. If their ballot is sitting on the counter, ask them to mail it tomorrow or drop it off.
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I don’t endorse candidates, and I can’t vote. You can, and you have eight days.