Nearly half of the voters who cast ballots in the midterm elections last year (47.1%) voted early, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Overall, 49.8% of voters voted early, by mail, or through a combination of both, said the bureau. That’s 10 percentage points higher than 2018 early voting and more than 18 percentage points higher than 2014 early voting.
However, it did not match record highs from 2020, when the presidential election was held amid COVID-19 lockdown orders. For example, more than 62% of 2020 ballots were cast early. Additionally, while 31.8% U.S. voters cast mail-in ballots in 2022, 43% cast mail-in ballots in 2020.
Demographics data from the Census Bureau showed that two-thirds of Asian non-Hispanic voters used early voting or mail-in methods to vote in 2022, “the highest rate across race and ethnicity.”
Most Hispanic voters (58.1%) also voted either early or by mail. White non-Hispanic (48.3%) and Black non-Hispanic voters (46.0%) used these methods at the lowest rates.
We may see more mail-in voting in the future. Former Republican President Donald Trump – who criticized mail-in voting as part of his claims that voter fraud impacted the 2020 election – has started to embrace the practice for his current 2024 presidential campaign. No evidence has been found to back up Trump’s election fraud claims.
Voter turnout for the 2022 midterms was the second highest for a congressional election in two decades, according to the bureau. At 52.2%, it was just 1.2 percentage points lower than the 2018 turnout. In 2020, turnout was at around 46% and it was even lower in 2014 at around 42%.
“Despite lower turnout in 2022 than in 2018, the share of voting-age citizens who were registered to vote was 69.1% — the highest registration rate in a midterm election since at least 2002,” said the Census Bureau.
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