How voting before Election Day became so widespread and so political

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters had plenty to argue about in the 1972 election, but they overwhelmingly agreed that when it came time to vote, they would do so in person on Election Day.

The act of voting was largely a communal experience that year, when roughly 95% of voters went to their local polling places and completed and submitted their ballots in person on a single day, according to a census survey at the time.

That number would fall gradually over the next 50 years as states provided Americans with more options on how and when to vote.

By 2022, only about half of the electorate voted at the polls on Election Day. The share of people voting before Election Day spiked to more than 70% in 2020, and votes cast by mail surpassed those cast on Election Day for the first time ever. That year, many states enacted emergency measures to temporarily expand vote-by-mail options to protect voters from the spread of COVID-19.

“We’ve been on an upward trend of early voting over time as more states have adopted early voting options and voters have embraced them,” said University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, who tracks voter turnout and early voting. “That’s resulted in a greater share of early votes being cast each election cycle.”

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