With early voting now underway through November 4th, as well as with initial reports of near-presidential year turnout in this midterm election, we thought it worth taking a closer look at some data about early voting–in terms of recent history. Nerd alert: early voting is technically a type of absentee voting. Next time you vote early, look closely at the form provided by the election staff; it will say “Application for In-Person Absentee Ballot.”
The Secretary of State’s detailed election results reports, published since 2012, break down ballots cast by method: Election Day, Absentee, Early Voting, and Provisional. Ballots are cast “provisionally” when a voter does not appear on the list; the voter has three days after the election to clear up any issue with the county elections board in order to have the ballot count.
The graph below (Exhibit 1) shows that early voting has been on an upward trend, though so has voting overall. Note that turnout is generally higher in presidential election years of 2012, 2016, and 2020 than in the “midterm” years of 2014 and 2018.
Exhibit 1: Trends by Election for Overall Turnout and Early Voting: State of Georgia
As a percentage of ballots cast, however, early voting has been fairly stable. It accounts for between 44 and 54 percent of all ballots cast each year. Early voting is a bit higher in presidential years, when Election Day lines tend to be longer, than in the lower-turnout midterm years. The percentage of voting on Election Day was essentially a mirror image of early voting until 2020, when many voters opted instead to vote absentee (mail in or via drop box) due to the pandemic. Provisional ballots are quite rare, accounting for about a quarter of a percent of all ballots cast:
Exhibit 2: Ballot Types (Percentage Share of Total) by Election Year: State of Georgia
The Secretary of State also publishes a list of citizens who applied for absentee ballots (including our friend, early voting) and the disposition of each application. We can use these data to take a closer look at how early voting unfolded in 2018, the last gubernatorial year. As this graph shows, early voting showed an upward trend over time: it started with just over 70k votes on the first day, finishing with over three times that on the last.
Exhibit 3: Early Voting by Day (within the period): 2018 Election, State of Georgia
But what’s with those two dips? October 21 and 28, 2018 were both Sundays. Very few sites were open on the weekends, and almost none on Sundays. The new voting law mandates more uniformity across counties in terms of what days early voting should take place (though critics point out that for some counties, that actually means fewer days of early voting). Counties must now offer two Saturdays worth of early voting– October 22 and 29 this year– but the decision whether or not to allow early voting on Sunday is left to each county.
https://sos.ga.gov/news/georgians-embrace-early-voting-heres-what-you-need-know
https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/
Voting access laws compared in Georgia and the United States (ajc.com)