Early voting has revolutionized how Americans select presidents and lawmakers, turning Election Day into a full season and marking the “October surprise” for extinction.
More than 78 million Americans cast ballots before Election Day, and swing states such as Georgia and hurricane-battered North Carolina had record turnout.
Most Americans this cycle reported that they would cast ballots before Tuesday, an increase from pre-pandemic levels. The sea change forces candidates to define their opponents and campaign pitches by late September.
When Vice President Kamala Harris challenged her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, to a second debate in October, the former president said there was no point because people were already voting.
The comment reflected the Republican Party’s acceptance of early voting after criticism of pre-Election Day voting cost the party dearly in 2020. It appears to be paying dividends in swing-state Nevada, where Republicans held a 5-percentage-point lead over Democrats in mail and early in-person voting totals.
The parties are showing mixed results elsewhere. A surge of female voters in Pennsylvania is causing angst among Trump supporters, though an uptick in new male Republican voters in Arizona provides a counterweight.
“Republicans have made massive voter registration gains, and we are far outperforming in our share of the early vote relative to two or four years ago across all battleground states,” said Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Ms. Harris tried to counteract the Republican Party’s catch-up act by advertising on the illuminated Sphere in Las Vegas and timing rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other swing states with the beginning and end of early voting.
“It is so, so easy to join your friends and cast your ballot. I’ve already voted. I sent in my mail-in ballot about a month ago,” Mason Garrigan, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point said during a rally Monday with Ms. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Early voters used absentee ballots or in-person voting, known as “advance voting.”
Advance voting began to proliferate around the 1970s but can be traced back to a 1921 Louisiana constitutional provision that said, “The Legislature may provide a method by which absentee voting will be permitted other than by mail,” according to The Associated Press.
Broader options do not mean faster results. Mail-in and absentee ballots, which voters are using at historic levels, will slow tallying on Tuesday and will likely delay the presidential election results in some battleground states.
Voting rules vary by state. According to Vote.org, a nonpartisan nonprofit, early voting is prohibited in Alabama, Mississippi and New Hampshire. In Illinois, Minnesota and Vermont, generous periods start 40 or more days before Election Day.
Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, has “in-person mail ballot voting,” a system in which voters request a ballot and submit it in person.
Voting before Election Day is often limited to a select number of locations rather than the full array of polling sites. It appeals to people who want to avoid long lines and cast their ballots when they please, especially if they have a long work shift or other duties on Election Day.
Giving voters their say up to several weeks before Election Day takes some of the sting out of a so-called October surprise, in which damning information harms or helps a candidate.
A warm-up comedian for Mr. Trump on Oct. 27 joked that Puerto Rico was a floating pile of garbage, and President Biden responded by calling Trump supporters garbage, causing an uproar. Yet tens of millions of people had already voted.
A Gallup poll released Thursday found that 54% of registered voters planned to cast their ballots before Election Day.
Although that is down 10 percentage points from 2020, when the COVID-19 public health emergency fueled early mail-in votes, only 40% voted early in 2016, 35% in 2012, 32% in 2008 and 21% in 2004.
Voters in each party had similar early voting rates until 2020, when Democrats were far more likely to cast votes before Election Day.
Mr. Trump cast doubt on mail-in and early voting during that campaign and said elections should be a one-day affair. Suspicions around early voting and potential voting appeared to backfire on the Republican Party, which lost the White House race and squandered the Senate by losing seats in Georgia in January 2021.
What a difference four years makes.
“Absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day voting are all good options,” Mr. Trump wrote in all capital letters on Truth Social in April.
Voters of all kinds are heeding the call, and some states are smashing records.
More than 4 million people in Georgia voted before Election Day. Republican elections officials boasted after critics said a 2021 election overhaul would lead to voter suppression and voters withering from thirst in polling lines.
“For those that claimed Georgia election laws were Jim Crow 2.0 and those that say democracy is dying … the voters of Georgia would like to have a word,” Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the state secretary of state, said on X.
North Carolina, a battleground with 16 electoral votes, said more than 4.2 million people took advantage of early in-person voting, smashing the record of 3.6 million despite fears that devastation from Hurricane Helene would suppress totals.
When absentee votes are included, nearly 4.5 million people — 57% of the state’s registered voters — cast ballots before Election Day.
“Candidates and their campaigns now have to consider it’s ’Election Month’ and not just ’Election Day’ in this state,” said Michael Bitzer, director of the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service at Catawba College. “They must have a well-organized ground game operation, and their GOTV efforts have to be constantly updated to reflect who has cast a ballot already, thereby avoiding wasting time and resources on banked ballots from voters.”
It’s difficult to determine who has the edge from early voting. Mr. Bitzer pointed to an “unprecedented” three-way tie in voter party affiliation: 32.4% Democratic, 33.6% unaffiliated and 33.3% Republican.
Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told early voters at a Raleigh rally on Monday to use their free time wisely on Tuesday.
“It means you have all day tomorrow to bring your friends to the polls,” he said. “Do not take anything for granted.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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