I would like to see the breakdown by state on the unreturned ballots.
There are nine states that mail absentee ballots to all registered voters. I would expect the number of unreturned ballots to be higher in those areas, especially the states that also have in-person voting.
I’m also not sure how the states handle it if someone that requested an absentee ballot showed up to vote early. Do they immediately disqualify their absentee ballot or does that only happen when they send it in?
Professor McDonald, the guy running the US Elections Project where I get the numbers, has a weekly analysis of returned ballots. In today’s analysis, he lists states that have exceeded or come close to the number of votes cast in 2016. First on the list is Hawaii at 111%. Hawaii does all VbM. Other all VbM states on the list are Nevada (91% returned), Oregon (88%), and Colorado (87%). So it doesn’t look like having all VbM suppresses early voting, at least not this year.
I was surprised that Oregon has such a high return rate. Usually most people wait until the last day or two to drop them off at drop boxes. We aren’t a swing state by any means and there’s no major ballot issue. But I guess everyone’s eager to vote against him. BTW, if you want to vote “in person” in Oregon, you can bring the ballot they mailed to you to the county Elections Office and they’ll have a little voting booth you can fill it out in. But really, it’s no different than if you did it at home.
Yeah if I do pester, it’ll be well afterward.
https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
Last updated: 11/02/2020 02:44 PM Eastern Time
Total Early Votes: 97,098,946 • In-Person Votes: 35,436,991 • Mail Ballots Returned: 61,661,955 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 29,952,075
Last updated: 11/02/2020 07:21 PM Eastern Time
Total Early Votes: 97,930,638 • In-Person Votes: 35,497,078 • Mail Ballots Returned: 62,433,560 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 29,647,232
Only a couple million to go … do we get a prize if we go over 10^8?
Last updated: 11/02/2020 08:40 PM Eastern Time
Total Early Votes: 98,423,113 • In-Person Votes: 35,531,343 • Mail Ballots Returned: 62,891,770 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 29,191,841
Edging closer…
Last updated: 11/02/2020 09:40 PM Eastern Time
Total Early Votes: 98,708,297 • In-Person Votes: 35,720,830 • Mail Ballots Returned: 62,987,467 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 29,103,321
No, no, no, no, no, no. Seriously, don’t. I used to think this. I preached it. I finally came to see it’s a TERRIBLE perspective. DON’T vote unless you know what the hell you’re doing. DON’T vote if you get all your news from biased sources like Fox. Uninformed/manipulated voters are dangerous and bad for the country. We’d all be better off if they stayed home.
It’s astonishing how fast this number is ticking up. Looks like it’ll break over 100,000,000 before morning. 
After midnight it’s no longer early votes, though, is it?
Wonder if it’ll make it by midnight.
Sure they are! Polls open tomorrow morning at what, 7-8:00 a.m.? 
– good grief, that’s in twelve minutes.
LOL, that’s hilarious. But I’ll still take the position that every vote tallied ahead of the polls opening – wherever they may be – is an “early” vote.
I just want to see us top that 100,000,000 figure, I guess.
Even if they’re not being accepted anymore, it’s very possible jurisdictions will still have a lot of them that need to be opened/counted (not tallied, just counting how many they have). Especially if ballots from city wide drop boxes need to be collected and brought in.
Three hours and five minutes left until midnight here on the Left Coast. (Even more in Alaska and Hawaii.)
As I understand it, mail-in ballots are accepted in drop-boxes (where available and not incinerated) up through and including Election Day, although I don’t know when they would stop being called “early”, if that even matters.)
'Zackly. Plus votes that were mailed but haven’t yet been physically delivered to their BOEs and added to the tallies. I hear there are quite a few recently discovered in hidey holes in various post offices around the country, especially in battleground states controlled by Republicans. Those are still early votes.
They’ll be discovering those here and there for the next fifty years.
They’re probably discovering some 50-year-old hidey holes while looking for these ballots.
I stopped by the PO today to drop off some packages, and the outside mailboxes had signs on them explaining what to do. In short, people could drop them off today at a certain window and they would make sure they arrived on time.
I am sure you are right. We’re in the wrong forum for me to say what I think of Louis DeJoy.
We have a long road ahead to fix all that is wrong. For now, I just want to enjoy one little uplifting event of a good thing that is happening in our country. The first in 4 years.
OK, I’ll stop nitpicking!