Early Voting: A 2020 Success Story

With the COVID-19 pandemic making the very act of mingling with others a serious health risk, 2020 was shaping up as an election year with low turnout and voter engagement.

Instead, Americans are turning out in droves to cast early ballots – weeks before Election Day and in numbers that have experts predicting record-breaking turnout. As of Oct. 15, more than 18 million people had already voted, a number that represents 12.9% of the entire 2016 turnout with 19 days to go before Election Day. Individual states are reporting exponentially higher numbers of people asking for, and returning, absentee ballots.

That number is significantly higher than in this stage of the election in 2016: By the week ending Oct. 16, 2016, just 1.4 million Americans had voted early, according to tallies by the nonpartisan U.S. Elections Project.

The reason, elections officials and experts say, is a flurry of steps taken by states to make it easier to register to vote and to cast a ballot. And while many of the steps were taken to address health worries during the pandemic, there is widespread belief that the changes will stay in place for future elections, perhaps permanently increasing turnout in a country that lags behind other developed nations in the percentage of people who participate in the most basic display of democracy.

People "are voting in unprecedented numbers," despite the pandemic – or perhaps because of it, says Tom Ridge, former GOP governor of Pennsylvania and the secretary of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration. "I'm hopeful it's a sign of the times. I'm hopeful that it carries over, not just in a presidential year, but every year.

"It's too early to assess whether or not this has a positive, long-term impact, but the fact is that states are doing a tremendous job" of expanding ways to vote. "I hope we sustain that commitment to voting in the years ahead," adds Ridge, co-chairman of VoteSafe, a bipartisan group of election administrators and organizations dedicated to ensuring Americans can vote safely during the public health crisis.

"The pandemic's changed the way we live our lives – the way we work, the way our kids go to school. It's changing voting in this election for sure," says Jonathan Van Horn, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney who works with the Election Protection Project in Minnesota. The project offers a hotline – 1-866-OURVOTE – for people to call with questions or concerns about voting. "Some of it is a trend that had already started, but the pandemic has been an accelerator. I hope it does precipitate a rethink" of how jurisdictions run elections, he adds.

Rethinking Voting in the Coronavirus Age

Virginia enacted a slew of new laws intended to ease participation: Voters can now vote absentee without having to provide a reason, an action other states have taken as well. The state has also made Election Day a state holiday – a limited gesture since people in private industry or who work for the federal government will not have the day free to vote. But voting advocates say it may help people who find it hard to get to the polls because of work obligations.

Several states are pushing the envelope along for voters who might not be aware of how to request and return absentee ballots. The Wisconsin Election Commission, for example, announced it would send absentee ballot request forms to all registered voters for November. Missouri, meanwhile, passed a law to allow any voter to vote by mail in the 2020 elections.

Illinois passed a law requiring election officials to send ballot applications to any voter who voted in the past three years and allows voters to electronically request and return ballot applications.

California, Nevada and the District of Columbia went further, approving new policies to send ballots – not just applications – to registered voters.

New York has created a one-stop absentee ballot web portal, allowing Empire Staters to request an absentee ballot with the click of a mouse. Voters can then return their absentee ballots by mailing them, dropping them off at the county Board of Elections office or at an early voting site, or by bringing them to the polls on Election Day.

The state also allowed people to request an absentee ballot right away, after the law was passed in August, instead of the previous law, which permitted absentee ballot requests starting 30 days before Election Day.

[READ: Democracy Demographics: The data behind the votes.]

Further, voters can provide as an "excuse" the worry of contracting COVID-19 at the polls – effectively extending the absentee ballot option to anyone who wants it.

Early voting of some sort is now available in 43 states and the District of Columbia, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The options include mail-in voting, early in-person voting or in-person absentee voting. And 20 states, plus D.C., include weekend early voting options for those who cannot take time off work to vote on weekdays.

States used to look at voting with a "Field of Dreams" approach – "build it, and they will come," says Grace Wachlarowicz, Minneapolis's assistant city clerk and director of Elections & Voter Services. Now, "it's more voter-centric, expanding early voting and vote by mail" with states remaking their laws and policies to accommodate voters instead of forcing voters to arrange their lives and schedules around the schedules of state elections officials, she says.

In Ohio, voters have 28 days to vote before Election Day and 13 hours when they can cast ballots on Nov. 3, says Sherry Poland, director of the Board of Elections in Hamilton County, Ohio. That includes two weekends when voters can cast ballots.

Already, the county has seen a record number of voters request absentee ballots, Poland says.

In Massachusetts, citizens can now vote by mail – and vote early, including on one Saturday, when some jurisdictions have food trucks and attractions for kids to make the early voting experience an appealing family outing, says Sophia Hall, who directs election protection work at Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston.

"Corona has certainly provided an opportunity for Massachusetts to kind of kick itself into gear," Hall says. "Despite having a general belief that Massachusetts is kind of the hub of progressive modernity, it's not so much the case when we look at our election law." The state had a record turnout in the primary, and more than half of the vote was by mail, she adds, a sign that the changes are working.

There are already signs the expansion of early voting is having an impact.

In Georgia, people waited in line as long as 11 hours to vote early, despite the pandemic, and by Thursday morning, the Georgia secretary of state reported, a tenth of eligible Peach State voters had already cast ballots. Texas, a longtime GOP stronghold that is in play this year, has also seen a record-breaking explosion in early voting, with more than a million Lone Star Staters casting ballots in just the first day of early voting.

In the first week of early voting in Ohio, lines were shorter but turnout was heavy, with more than three times as many people casting early ballots than in 2016, the secretary of state's office reported. With the pre-dawn skies still dark on the first day of early voting in North Carolina, people were already in line, an hour before the polls opened, ready to cast ballots. The South Carolina Election Commission was also reporting record early turnout and predicted the early vote would total 1 million – twice the previous record.

Getting Out the Poll Workers

Many people still want to vote on Election Day, and states are at work to make that go more smoothly.

In Ohio, officials scrambling to sign up the 35,000 poll workers needed for the election are offering an incentive to certified public accountants. The Accountancy Board of Ohio is now giving credits to CPAs toward their mandatory continuing public education general credits if they work the polls Election Day.

In Kentucky, the secretary of state's office worked with the Kentucky Guild of Brewers to design beer labels soliciting volunteers to work the polls. The state office got 5,000 poll workers from the effort, says Miranda Combs, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office.

"The beer labels created a lot of buzz, which turned to people asking themselves, 'Why don't I work the polls?'" Combs says.

In Michigan, the Detroit Lions professional football team is offering Ford Field as a place where ballots and equipment can be delivered and secured, if needed, after polls close. Lions staff are also serving as election workers.

In Minnesota, the secretary of state hosts a program for 16- and 17-year-old students, who can earn up to $300 a day working the polls. The program not only provides more needed poll workers but gets young people involved in the election process at an early age, making it more likely they will become lifelong voters themselves, Wachlarowicz says.

"I wish that demographic would embrace the notion that one vote does count," Ridge says. "Voting is a civic responsibility and I would like folks to embrace it." States are offering many paths to voting next month, Ridge says, and while absentee voting appears to be the future, any option will do.

"Pick a path. Take it. And vote," Ridge says.

This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reporting about responses to social problems.