44.8 Million Americans Have Already Voted. In Texas the Early Vote Is Already 77% of 2022's Entire Turnout

At least 44.8 million Americans had cast ballots in the Nov. 3 midterm elections as of the latest state reports, according to a Boston Uncut tally of the University of Florida Election Lab's state-level early voting file, which aggregates figures reported by state and county election offices.

The file, maintained by Professor Michael McDonald, lists 44,778,349 ballots cast across 49 states, most with reports dated Oct. 29. That total combines 21,311,252 returned mail ballots and 23,586,423 ballots cast in person before Election Day. The BBC, citing McDonald, reported that four million to five million early votes have been cast each day, a much higher rate than in most previous elections.

The scale is easiest to see against the last midterm. The same file lists each state's total turnout in 2022; together those add up to about 110 million votes. The early ballots already in equal about 40.7% of that figure, five days before Election Day.

Texas stands out. Its 6,270,736 early ballots equal 76.9% of the 8,151,590 votes the state cast in all of 2022, the highest share in the country, according to the data. Almost all of the Texas early vote, 6,021,592 ballots, was cast in person. McDonald told the BBC that Texas has seen the most above-average turnout so far and that some heavily Hispanic counties on the border with Mexico are "going to beat their 2022 turnout in just the early vote alone."

Other states with high early totals relative to 2022 include Tennessee (64.4%), Georgia (62.8%), Nevada (59.0%), North Carolina (56.7%) and Montana (55.0%). By raw count, after Texas come California at 4,827,892, Florida at 4,266,000, Georgia at 2,490,870 and North Carolina at 2,150,025.

Party data must be read carefully. The Election Lab file reports party registration only for states that record it, roughly half the states. In those states, registered Democrats account for 44.0% of early ballots, registered Republicans 31.3% and voters with no party affiliation 24.7%, matching the shares the BBC reported. Those numbers describe the party registration of the voters, not how they voted, and they exclude the large states that do not register by party, including Texas, Georgia and Michigan. McDonald told the BBC that Democratic early voting is up, while Republican early voting is generally similar to 2022.

The data also reflect a shift in how people vote. McDonald told the BBC that voters increasingly prefer to vote in person even when they vote early, and are returning ballots sooner. He said that could reflect concerns about postal voting, though there is no data showing the cause. Mail ballots are more likely to be disqualified for errors, he noted.

In New England, the early vote is lower relative to 2022 than in the South. Massachusetts had 983,961 ballots in the Election Lab file as of Oct. 29, made up of 697,157 mail ballots and 286,804 in-person early votes. That is 39.2% of the 2,511,461 votes cast in the state's 2022 governor's race. Maine was at 40.2% of its 2022 turnout, Vermont at 45.1%, Rhode Island at 28.2% and Connecticut at 26.9%. New Hampshire does not appear in the file. New York was at 21.1%.

The Massachusetts figure in the Election Lab file is higher than the 903,279 the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office reported as of Wednesday afternoon, reflecting another day of mail returns and in-person voting.

Some cities are already reporting records. Minneapolis said Thursday that it had set an early voting record for a non-presidential election, the BBC reported.

Several caveats apply. The file combines different sources and reporting schedules; the latest reports for Minnesota and Mississippi are dated Oct. 23 and Oct. 26. Some states report mail ballots sent rather than requested, and California's figures use the higher of two sources, according to notes in the file. Early voting is also front-loaded in states that offer weeks of it, so a high early share does not necessarily mean higher final turnout. McDonald told the BBC that overall turnout appears on track to exceed 2022 and possibly 2018, the highest midterm turnout in more than a century.

Early voting tapers off this weekend as states close their early voting periods ahead of Tuesday. The final count of ballots cast will not be known until all states complete their canvasses after Election Day.