Almost half of midterm voters cast ballots before Election Day: Census Bureau

Almost half of voters in last year’s midterms cast their ballots before Election Day, according to new data from the U.S Census Bureau.

New Current Population Survey (CPS) data reveals that 47.1 percent of midterm voters did so before Election Day, up nearly 10 percentage points from the 37.8 percent observed during the 2018 midterms. 

Roughly one-third of voters, or 31.8 percent, cast their vote by mail, a jump from 23.1 percent in 2018.

Just over half of the voting-age population, or 52.2 percent, participated in the election, accounting for the second-highest voter turnout in a nonpresidential congressional election year since 2000. 

Up from 66.9 percent in 2018, 69.1 percent of voting-age citizens were registered to vote in the 2022 midterms, the highest rate for a midterm this millennium.

For registered voters who didn’t cast ballots in 2022, the most common reason cited was “too busy, conflicting work or school schedule.” 

Mail-in voting reached record highs in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and concerns about mail-in voting surged during the 2020 presidential election as former President Trump and his allies raised refuted allegations of widespread voter fraud, which prompted some states to tighten mail-in ballot and early voting rules.

But the new data shows “the share of voters who voted early, by mail or a combination of both in 2022 remained high for a midterm election following record high rates” in 2020.