Like Vote As the day approached, tens of millions of voters across the country cast their ballots.

Through mail-in ballots or early in-person voting stations, more than 68 million Americans, roughly 43% of 2020 turnout, had voted against standing in line on Election Day as of Friday afternoon, according to U.S. data. University of Florida Election Lab.

Academic experts, reporters and pundits are trying to get clues about next week’s results by poring over basic and limited data from early voting numbers.

But the picture isn’t exactly black and white, according to Charles Stewart, director of the election data science laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“It’s like talking about the weather,” he said. “Candidates, press, etc. are really just trying to draw conclusions based on the face value of the data, but there really isn’t much to tell who won.”

However, Stewart said early voting data provides some insight into this year’s voting patterns and overall turnout, indicators that could help explain how the election turned out.

A change in the way people vote early

Voting trends have shown that more people are choosing to vote before Election Day, and that number has increased over the past 30 years, but 2020 has emerged as a significant outlier, according to Stewart.

According to MIT data, 69 percent of the 158 million total votes in the last presidential election were cast before Election Day, either by mail (which was dropped in person by mail) or at early voting poll sites.

About 43% of early votes in 2020 came from mail-in ballots, according to the data.
Stewart said the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many voters who were already heavily engaged and wanted to be safe to use mail ballots or smaller voting lines if possible.

“There was speculation about what the shift would be after the pandemic was over,” he said.

But Stewart said there was a decline in the number of voters choosing to vote by mail during this year’s early voting.

“The main trend I see is that interest in voting by mail is shifting towards voting in person,” Stewart said.

He stated that the change is clearly visible in Georgia, which reached record early voting numbers with more than 3.8 million votes as of Friday. About 92 percent of those were cast in person at polling places, with the remainder cast by mail, according to the survey. Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia.

Some states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, offer early voting only through in-person absentee voting, Stewart said. Under this option, a voter must request an absentee ballot, fill it out, and then drop it off at a ballot box or designated location and will be counted as a voter who votes by mail.

Some voters may not have the time or energy to take those extra steps to cast their ballots early and will likely vote in person, Stewart said.

“If you need to vote early in person, you need to find out where that precinct is, but you also need to find out which one is closer to your home or work. When voting by mail, you should make an effort to apply, fill it out, return it, and hope the mail is delivered on time.” he said. “With Election Day voting, you probably have a voting site much closer to you.”

The choice of early voting method isn’t the only thing that went wrong, according to Stewart.

Partisan numbers give no indication of outcome

Stewart said historical trends show that the majority of early voters made up their minds long ago and are likely to be politically active.

He said this year’s data shows that to be the case, according to the University of Florida Election Lab, noting that there has been a big shift in partisan turnout in some battleground states.

Registered Republicans saw higher early voting turnout in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina as of Friday compared to 2024, according to the data.

Typically, Democrats have had an advantage in early voting. But Stewart said Trump was pushing his supporters to cast their ballots earlier and that was having an impact.

While Republican officials tout those high numbers as a sign of growing support, Stewart warned there is more nuance in the data.

He noted that so far it shows that the majority of registered Republicans who cast their ballots early are from people who voted on Election Day 2020 and are not new voters.

That would mean fewer Republican voters casting ballots on Election Day, and therefore their votes would not be reported until much later on election night, or even in later days, Stewart said.

In 2020, many swing states saw Democratic numbers increase on election night and throughout the week, creating a “red mirage” effect on the outcome.

Stewart said the mirage and “blue wave” could be silenced this time.

“Whatever the transition to blue is, it will probably be a less steep slope,” he said.

What do gender and race say about early voting?

Democrats argue that the gender gap in early voting numbers is a factor in their favor, as more than 54 percent of women had voted as of Friday, according to University of Florida data.

Stewart said this assumption was unremarkable.

In presidential elections dating back to 1980, women always made up the majority of voters.Rutgers University Center for Women and Politics.

Stewart said this also applies to early voters.

“It’s not always obvious to the public that there is always a gender divide,” she said.

When it comes to race, white voters are more likely to vote by mail than Black voters, according to MIT data.

Stewart said this stems from traditions dating back to the civil rights movement.

“African Americans fought and sometimes died to get into the voting booth. This was instilled in the society,” he said.

This practice is one factor in why so many Black voters are heading to in-person early voting polling sites in states like Georgia and South Carolina where that option is available.

Churches, civil rights groups and other organizations with ties to the Black community are pushing voters to vote early, using campaigns such as “to the polls” to avoid any complications on Election Day.

Groups in Georgia, in particular, are highlighting early voting as a way to get around some rules. restrictive voting laws What has been implemented since the 2020 elections.

More than 1 million Black voters had cast ballots as of Friday evening, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

“The mobilization efforts have clearly proven to be effective,” Stewart said.

Signs show high turnout

Stewart said the definitive conclusion that can be drawn from early voting data is that this year’s overall turnout will be “on par” with turnout in 2020, which was the highest voter turnout in terms of percentage in the last 100 years.

“This could be as high as 160 (million),” he predicted.

Stewart said early voting trends show voters under 25 have not yet voted and will typically line up on Election Day.

“This population is really heavily represented on Election Day,” he said.

Stewart reiterated that once the pandemic is over, a significant portion of early voters in 2020 could return to vote on Election Day, especially if presented with an easier option in terms of their locations and schedules.

As for the future, Steward predicted that the increase in early voting by Republican voters will continue in future periods, along with the general trend of voters to vote early.

“The data shows this organic increase in early voting even after the pandemic,” he said. “Voters want more choices, and if they have more choices they will seriously consider voting.”