Here is an update on the big numbers related to early voting in states that are hosting competitive statewide races this November. Following is from SOS sites through October 25. I’ve added links after certain states to experts who know a lot more about those locales than I do and offer more detailed breakdowns of the data.
People have been commenting along the lines of “Yeah, but what does all of this mean?” For that I would go to the experts for more interpretation in the races that interest you. Given the variability of the data that the various state Secretaries of State post online some insights may be easier than others. For example, Arizona provides an “Early Ballot-Advanced” tab that provides all kinds of pivot tables that can take apart a figure like 50.0% of ballots returned are from female voters, to show party, age, congressional district, etc. One can also look at county-level data for communities with which you are familiar to see at what rate ballots are coming in if, for instance, you know these areas are highly blue or red. The point is this data can only show so much but at this level does give a sense of two metrics: voter enthusiasm and with, a closer look in certain states, partisan breakdown.
Nevada
Nevada has both in-person early voting and mail-in absentee and provides a partisan breakdown across both methods in most counties.
TOTAL VOTE |
IN-PERSON |
|
|
MAIL-IN |
|
|
93,793 |
Dem |
96,911 |
42.3% |
Dem |
15,326 |
36.3% |
90,399 |
Rep |
89,110 |
38.9% |
Rep |
19,647 |
46.6% |
42,057 |
Other |
42,999 |
18.8% |
Other |
7,210 |
17.1% |
271,203*
|
Total |
229,020 |
|
Total |
42,183 |
|
* There are 10 additional mail-in votes not broken down by party and not included in this total
The percentage breakdowns between R and D have not really changed, although the D Mail-In percentage did tick up 1.0% and correspondingly the R percentage dropped about 1.0%.
Link to the venerable Jon Ralston and his early voting blog for much more.
Florida
Florida has optional in-person voting in certain counties until October 27th when it is required to be offered statewide.
TOTAL VOTE |
IN-PERSON |
VOTE CAST
|
% TOTAL CAST
|
MAIL-IN
|
RETURNED |
% TOTAL RETURNED |
OUTSTANDING |
808,288 |
Dem |
232,687 |
41.6% |
Dem |
575,601 |
39.0% |
788,071 |
869,745 |
Rep |
233,729 |
41.7% |
Rep |
636,016 |
43.0% |
672,722 |
347,488 |
NPA* |
89,193 |
15.9% |
NPA |
258,295 |
17.5% |
428,248 |
12,284 |
Other |
4,306 |
0.8% |
Other |
7,978 |
0.5% |
12,325 |
2,037,805 |
|
559,915 |
|
|
1,477,890 |
|
1,901,393 |
* NPA=No Party Affiliation
Republicans still lead in the Florida Early Vote. The party percentages remained pretty steady. October 27th is the beginning of the required period for in-person early voting to be offered in all Florida counties so the in-person numbers might start to pick up. The striking number is how many Democratic absentee ballots that were requested are still outstanding, over 110,000 more than outstanding Republican ballots. That’s a GOTV target for Florida: Democratic absentee voters.
For a lot more in-depth Florida analysis there is Poli Sci Professor Daniel Smith @electionsmith and Dem Political Advisor Steve Schale and his blog.
Arizona
Arizona SOS’s “dashboard” draws from difference data sets to present their early voting information. The site aggregates everything into a daily updated total of “Early Ballot Returns.”
|
EARLY BALLOT RETURNS
|
|
|
|
Dem |
281,392 |
32.9% |
|
Rep |
375,319 |
43.9% |
|
Unaffiliated & Minor |
197,337 |
23.1% |
|
Total |
761,395 |
|
|
DEMOGRAPHICS
|
|
|
|
Female |
50.0% |
|
|
Median Age |
56 |
|
|
Mean Age |
56.5 |
|
Like in Florida, Republicans still lead in the Arizona Early Vote and like in the Sunshine State the party percentages remained pretty steady. The female early vote has gone from 49.7% to 50.0%. Using the Advanced tab mentioned at the top of the post currently there are about 21,000 more Republican women than Democratic women in the early vote (which makes sense given the median voter age of 56 and the Republican lead overall). But what we don’t know is if these are more the disaffected, college-educated ,suburban type Republicans or that mystifying group known as “Women for Trump.”
@Garret_Archer aka the AZ Data Guru goes deeper into the SOS site data, such as analyzing precinct level maps and congressional districts.
Iowa
Like Arizona Iowa allows in-person absentee voting. And like Arizona both in-person and mail-in ballots received are counted together.
|
EARLY BALLOT |
REQUESTED |
SENT |
RECEIVED |
% RECEIVED |
|
Dem |
195,313 |
194,815 |
127,924 |
44.5% |
|
Rep |
162,173 |
161,843 |
105,785 |
36.8% |
|
No Party |
92,634 |
92,358 |
52,268 |
18.2% |
|
Libertarian & Other |
2,472 |
2,463 |
1,345 |
0.5% |
|
Total |
452,592 |
451,479 |
287,322 |
|
Democrats are leading in the early ballot in Iowa by almost 8%, a difference they are maintaining as early voting continues.
Georgia
Georgia offers early in-person voting in various locales, along with mail-in absentee balloting (although if Brian Kemp gets his way not all the ballots may actually be counted). The SOS site does not disaggregate the data by party. It does provide the top 5 counties in terms of turnout, which is updated on an ongoing basis.
TOTAL CAST |
944,412 |
|
TOP 5 TURNOUT COUNTIES |
TOTAL VOTE |
% TOTAL |
In-Person |
|
|
Fulton |
122,034 |
12.9% |
Voted |
819,484 |
86.8% |
Gwinnett |
69,187 |
7.3% |
Absent/Mail-In |
|
|
DeKalb |
62,221 |
6.6% |
Returned |
124,928 |
13.2% |
Cobb |
38,170 |
4.0% |
Outstanding |
122,164 |
|
Henry |
26,890 |
2.8% |
Georgian Ryan Anderson has put together Georgia Votes with breakdowns along age, race, gender, comparative trend line. Very nice.
Texas
Texas is rather restrictive when it comes to who may vote by mail so the bulk of early voting in the Lone Star State must be done in-person. The results are tracked for the 30 largest counties in the state (which represents 12.3 million or about 78% of registered voters) and are not broken down by party.
TOTAL CAST
|
1,997,077
|
|
5 LARGEST COUNTIES
|
TOTAL VOTE
|
% TOTAL REGISTERED
|
5 HIGHEST % COUNTIES |
TOTAL VOTE |
% TOTAL REGISTERED |
In-Person |
|
|
Harris (Houston) |
309,115 |
13.2% |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
75,734 |
22.8% |
Cast |
1,733,857 |
86.8% |
Dallas (Dallas) |
225,491 |
16.9% |
Comal (New Braunfels) |
22,765 |
22.6% |
By-Mail |
|
|
Tarrant (Ft. Worth) |
179,640 |
16.0% |
Hays (San Marcos) |
27,968 |
20.8% |
Returned |
263,220 |
13.2% |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
156,250 |
14.2% |
Collin (Plano) |
119,338 |
20.6% |
|
|
|
Travis (Austin) |
148,642 |
19.2% |
Lubbock (Lubbock) |
36,068 |
20.5% |
I have included not only the five largest counties in terms of registered voters but also, for comparison, the top five counties in terms of percentage of registered voters who have voted. Bottom line is the populous counties are closing the gap with smaller ones in terms of the percentage of registered voters who have voted early.
The Texas Tribune has an Early Voting Page that graphs the data county-by-county with comparative benchmarks for 2016,2014, and 2012 elections (h/t txdoubledd).
Tennessee
Tennessee also has a list of specific statutory criteria to determine who may vote by mail-in ballot. Tennessee also combines the in-person vote totals with the mail-in ballots returned and does not break down the early vote by party. The SOS site prepares a comparison of early vote through the comparable voting period in the previous two elections, the 2016 Presidential election and the 2014 Midterms, but does not update it daily.
|
2018 VOTERS |
|
TOTAL |
DIFFERENCE |
% CHANGE |
COUNTIES AHEAD OF PACE |
Through |
809,912 |
2016 |
975,290 |
-165,378 |
-17.0% |
0 |
Day 8 |
2014 |
268,434 |
+541,478 |
+201.7% |
95 |
Tennessee’s early vote is running behind where it was in 2016 (an election where Trump carried the state by 26 points) but is still running 200% ahead of where it was at this point in the 2014 Midterms.
Montana
Montana has in-person absentee voting whereby you can apply, receive, fill-out, and drop off an absentee ballot at a county election office. It will be opened and counted on election day with the rest of the mail-in ballots (as opposed to being immediately scanned, banked, and ready for an immediate vote dump as soon as the polls close on election day). Montana provides a daily updated spreadsheet of the ballots that have been requested and received broken down by county. That’s it.
|
NUMBER SENT |
NUMBER RECEIVED |
% RECEIVED |
|
412,196 |
176,024 |
42.7% |
Indiana
Indiana has in-person absentee voting as well as mail-in absentee allowed according to statutory criteria. Indiana’s Secretary of State does not seem to aggregate county level absentee ballot return data. It appears to be available through some county election boards but that’s too much for me to try to compile.
For these and other states not mentioned above a nationwide tracker is provided by Michael McDonald at the United States Election Project.