Early voting remained a popular pick among voters in fall 2024 elections

A state-by-state review of the November 2024 elections shows that early voting accounted for more than half of the total ballots cast in at least five Midwestern states: Michigan (60 percent), Illinois (54 percent), Indiana (54 percent), North Dakota (52 percent) and Kansas (51 percent).

Early voting includes ballots cast by mail or in person ahead of Election Day. Nationwide, the early vote was nearly 86 million, 54 percent of that total by mail and 46 percent in person, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

Those numbers were not yet final, but point to about 55 percent of total U.S. votes being cast early — second only to the pandemic year of 2020, when early voting accounted for 69 percent of all ballots cast.

According to the MIT Election Lab, most Midwestern states now allow residents to request a “no excuse” absentee ballot. The lone exception is Indiana, where voters must check off one of 11 reasons for needing the absentee ballot in their application to vote by mail. Under Indiana law, however, counties must make in-person absentee voting available for 28 days before the election; polling sites also must be open on the two Saturdays immediately before Election Day.

In every Midwestern state, the period for in-person voting is more than a week, and it spans more than a month in Illinois, Minnesota and South Dakota.

A handful of states outside the region, mostly in the West, conduct all-mail elections, meaning every resident receives a ballot in the mail without having to request one. (Ballots can still be cast in person.)

According to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state voting laws, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are among 24 U.S. states that allow some or all voters to sign up to be on a permanent list to receive ballots in the mail.

A state law in Nebraska permits smaller-populated rural counties to conduct elections entirely by mail, and 11 do so.