Early Voting Trends

If you're curious how much early voting is affecting the midterms, there appears to be some ongoing trends towards the practice, but whether or not it is changing who comes out to vote significantly may be debatable. From the News-Gazette today:

Trend: Fewer waiting until Election Day to cast votes
...
The number of people voting at their polling places has steadily declined over the past decade as more states have added early voting options, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

In 2004, it was one vote out of five votes that were cast early, absentee or by mail, the commission said in a report last year. By 2016, that number had grown to two votes out of every five cast.

Illinois is one of 37 states that offer at least some form of early voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures...

Early voting got off to a strong start in Champaign County and has tapered off a bit, [Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten] said, but numbers are still on target.

"The demand so far has been about what we expected, and we expected the demand to be significantly higher than it was four years ago," he said.

Hulten projects about half the votes for the upcoming election will be cast in advance of election day — consistent with the 2016 election, he said.

Hulten is posting updates on early voting counts in Champaign County on Twitter, and according to the last update 28 days before election day, 8,433 people had requested an application to vote by mail and 2,890 ballots had already been cast — either by mail or in person.

Full article with additional information here. Speaking of the County Clerk, the race to replace Gordy Hulten and two contested primaries has resulted in some larger than normal fundraising for the seat that has long been a Republican held one. More on that from the News-Gazette's Tom Kacich here.