Over 6 Million By-Mail, Early Voter Ballots Have Been Counted in California

According to new figures from the California Secretary of State’s office released Thursday, over 6 million early votes have already been cast, with the number expected to grow to at least 12 million by election day.

During the last presidential election by-mail and early voting have been at an all-time high. Thanks in large part to AB 37 and AB 860 making it law to send by-mail ballots to every registered voter in the state, as well as 2020 being a COVID stay at home year. In total, there were 22,047,448 registered voters 4 years ago according to the Secretary of State’s office, with 17,785,151 casting votes. 15,423,301 of those were vote by-mail. In total, over 80% of registered voters ended up voting, the most since the 1976 election. Over 70% of the voting age population also turned out, the highest since 1952.

However, while early voting and vote by-mail ballots are not expected to reach the 2020 highs with more people in 2024 going to a physical voting location, vote by-mail remains a popular choice.

Between Wednesday and Thursday, roughly 600,000 more votes have been sent in by mail, increasing from 5.4 million to 6 million. In addition, a registration report last month found that over 22 million Californians once again are registered to vote, meaning that, with new people registering up to the October 21st deadline, there could be close to 23 registered this year.

Broken down by county, Los Angeles County has 1.2 million of the 6 million votes cast already thanks to early and by-mail voting. Orange County and San Diego County also both had over 500,000 counted so far, with Orange County in particular seeing high early turnout due in part because of multiple close House races in the districts there.

In total, turned in by-mail and early voting ballots are expected to double by Tuesday. As County officials can begin counting ballots as far as 29 days before election day, the large swath of these early votes will likely have many early results across the state. However, for many close elections, in-person balloting, as well as late by-mail and overseas voting, is expected to be the deciding votes, with some races not expected to be finalized until later in the month or even December. In 2022, the 13th House District race wasn’t decided until the first week of December, with John Duarte (R-CA) narrowly winning the race.

“2020, you know, COVID year, really high mail and drop off count,” explained elections researcher Faye Kramer to the Globe Thursday. “This year will still be pretty high. 6 million already out of a state with around 22 million registered voters. That’s a lot. But it won’t be as high as 2020 in all likelihood. If California was a swing-state, we might see those numbers, but it isn’t. There are major races in each county though, as well, as many state issues, so people will come out to vote. But if we are looking for by-mail ballots to be higher than the 2020 election, it’s not going to happen. A lot of people still prefer voting in booths, especially older voters, and surprisingly, many first-time voters. They want that whole experience.

“We’ll see what the totals are and, combined with 2022 voting, we’ll find the new average of by-mail voters we can expect from now on.”