CALIFORNIA, USA — A "mad rush" of ballots returned for the 2020 General Election pushed an early launch for the Political Data, Inc. tracker and has potentially set the stage for record turnout.
The tracker currently has 279,543 ballots returned as of Sunday, Oct. 11, which compared to 2016’s total of 13,417 on the same day is a 20-fold increase.
“That’s why we put it up earlier than we normally do,” said Paul Mitchell, VP of Political Data, Inc. “It was just kind of this mad rush of ballots coming in. [It] made the data really to kind of start to tell a story even though it’s really, really, really early in the process.”
Altogether, the state mailed ballots this year to 21,508,716 registered voters.
The tracker from Political Data lists more than just the number of ballots returned. It also breaks down the numbers by party and different demographics. As of Oct. 11 with 1.3% of ballots returned, California Democrats have mailed off nearly three times more ballots than Republicans.
- Democrat: 158,149
- Independent/Other: 62,214
- Republican: 59,180
Currently, the 18 to 34 age group has the most ballots mailed out, and the lowest percentage of returned ballots so far. Older voters make up the biggest number of returned ballots, with 122,825 coming from voters 65 and older and 73,317 from voters 50 to 64.
With only 1.3% of ballots returned, the numbers are still following a norm Mitchell has seen in ballot returns over the years. He said the older voters are typically the first to get their ballots mailed off along with Republicans and conservatives.
However, the first wave of data has Democrat ballot returns ahead, which Mitchell believes could provide a shift to what he normally sees on election nights. He said election night results usually start out conservative and Republican because mail-in ballots are the first results released after polls close, but that changes as younger voters, minority voters, progressive voters, and more traditionally Democratic-favoring voters get their ballots counted.
“Given these huge numbers we’re seeing right now, a lot more of those voters that are traditionally late are now voting early,” said Mitchell.
He said it could mean that the early votes wind up being more representative of the final vote and that the late vote won’t have that Democratic surge.
While the surge in ballot returns so early on is undeniable, there was also more ballots mailed out this year than ever before. After an Executive Order from Gov. Gavin Newsom, every active registered voter was mailed a ballot. Mitchell said the 2016 General Election had 61% of ballots mailed out and 2018 had 67% of ballots mailed.
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“We’re still talking massive growth, but it’s not exactly a one-to-one comparison because we do have so many ballots mailed,” Mitchell said.
However, even after accounting for differences in the number of mail-in ballots sent, Mitchell said the current number of ballots returned is still 12 times what California saw in 2016.
He also said there’s likely 1 ½ million to 2 million Californians who already have ballots sitting in drop boxes or about to be opened in their county's Registrar of Voters Office come Monday morning.
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