Categories - Early Vote/In-Person Absentee Voting

Registration Early Vote/In-Person Absentee Voting Voter List Maintenance Voting Machines and Poll Workers Vote By Mail Central Website Access Photo ID Felon Enfranchisement

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The following states received 100% in Early Vote/In-Person Absentee Voting:

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Early voting allows voters to cast a ballot at select locations in their voting district prior to Election Day and at their own convenience. Early voting is usually held at City Hall or another early voting center, and like any policy that makes voting more convenient, early voting increases voter participation.  And, according to recent research by the Brennan Center, early voting also reduces the stress on the Election Day voting system, alleviates long Election Day lines, improves poll worker performance, allows early detection and correction of voting system errors, and ultimately increases voter satisfaction. The details of a state’s early voting policy are important to determine election accessibility.  Does the state allow early voters to cast their ballots in the evening or on weekends?  Are there multiple early voting locations in each county? Do voters have to go to an assigned location, or can they go to the early voting site nearest them? The more accessible and convenient early voting is, the more likely it is that people can and will take advantage of it. To determine how accessible each state’s early voting process is, the Scorecard includes the following metrics:

• Whether the state provides no-excuse early voting
• Whether the state offers early voting in multiple locations per municipality/county
• Whether the state offers early voting during evenings or weekends

If a practice varies by county or municipality – e.g. the number of early voting locations in Wisconsin vary from one municipality to another – the state only received 0.5 points for that metric. Each of these metrics provides useful insight into how easy it is for eligible voters to cast their ballot early.

For full details, please visit our detailed calculation spreadsheet.