Early voting has officially wrapped up in Delaware, and turnout numbers show around 45% of voters may have already cast a ballot.
Both the 2016 and 2020 Presidential Elections saw around 500,000 ballots cast in Delaware by the end of Election Day, ending with 65% and 69% voter turnout respectively.
Absentee and early voting combined for this election has reached almost 246,000 ballots, meaning based on the current number of registered voters, between 42-45% of those expected to vote have already voted.
“This is our first, or Delaware's first, presidential election with early voting — in-person early voting — and it's looking like a lot of people are getting out and casting their vote before Election Day," said Delaware Democratic Party Executive Director Travis Williams.
He explains the 10 days of early voting in Delaware has allowed the party to play the long game in their ‘get out the vote’ efforts.
“Now that we have early voting, we can do that GOTV, that ‘get out the vote’ work, over a series of days. So now Election Day is kind of our last pass over the voters that we've talked to over the course of the cycle.”
Williams also notes an increasing number of Republicans opted to vote early this year, and he hopes constitutionalizing this voting method will gain more bipartisan support in the coming years.
While Republican state legislators have largely shown support for constitutionalizing early voting, there has been less GOP support for mail-in voting.
Solidifying the two voting methods are currently combined in a Democratic-proposed constitutional amendment, while Republicans have introduced their own constitutional amendment only constitutionalizing in-person early voting — neither has advanced in the General Assembly.
About 44% of in-person early votes were Democrats, 35% were Republicans and 21% were another party or unaffiliated, and over 80% were over the age of 40.
Meanwhile, only 24% of mail-in ballots accepted have been cast by Republicans.
Polling locations will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and a list of polling locations throughout the state, along with sample ballots, can be found on the Delaware Department of Elections website.
