2024 Early Voting Comparison Newsletter

Oct 9, 2024

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Monitoring the Incoming results: 2020 to 2024 Pennsylvania and Michigan Early Voting Numbers

In 2020, early voting surged across the country driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and a hotly contested Presidential race. As early voting counts come in, it is reasonable to expect less early voting than pandemic times, but the question is: how much less? In 2020, 886,745 Pennsylvania voters had already cast their ballots by October 20th, with another 1,237,243 casting their vote in the two weeks before the election. So far, 220,356 Pennsylvania voters have cast their ballots in this year’s election, and, while this number is lower than it was at the same point in 2020, it’s still substantially higher than in previous elections, showing larger participation in early and absentee voting.

Michigan has also begun to release records of its early voting. As of now, 306,224 individuals have already cast an early or absentee vote. This figure is noteworthy when compared to 839,122 voters who participated in early voting less than two weeks before the election in 2020, alongside 742,685 who voted more than two weeks ahead of Election Day. While this data lacks the same pandemic-related conditions, some states have maintained or expanded early voting options, the absence of such a widespread crisis makes it difficult to draw direct comparisons.

It will also be interesting to see if there is a change in the partisan makeup of these early voters. In 2020 the Trump campaign was actively discouraging people from voting by mail. In 2024 both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are encouraging early voting and vote by mail.

States like Ohio, Arizona and North Carolina will soon release their early voting data, and we will be watching closely to see if they follow similar trends to those already observed in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The next month we will monitor these incoming results and those of other states and assess how they compare to previous elections. As we approach the critical weeks leading up to the November elections, it’s essential to refine your outreach strategies. Ensure that your universe targets only those essential individuals this November by removing those who have already voted. Combining HaystaqDNA scores with L2 voter mapping offers a powerful strategy for effectively reaching undecided voters in the 2024 elections.

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