Early & absentee voting serves to make October a month where every day is an Election Day, with the votes that happen ahead of time having a significant effect on the eventual result on actual Election Day. In the 22 states* for which NationBuilder currently has early vote data, approximately 875,000 people have already cast their ballots. In those same states, more than 5.9 million people have requested absentee ballots as well. With the importance of early & absentee voting in mind, what does this mean for your campaign and GOTV efforts?
Currently, 1.3% of registered voters have voted early in addition to approximately 9% of voters opting to request absentee ballots. While that might not seem like a huge amount of people, if we assume that turnout this cycle is somewhere around the turnout percentages for 2008/2012 (62% and 58% respectively), that means that around 2.5 percent of likely registered voters have already voted and almost a fifth of voters have requested absentee ballots. That’s significant because early GOTV efforts can reach a significant number of those people and ensure they vote right now, instead of just trying to reach them in the week leading up to election day.
You can request our data here and we'll supply you with updated data up until the election. Having this data in your nation will mean that you can setup filters that exclude people who have already voted in the 2016 general election to maximize your GOTV efforts. Here's an example filter that excludes people who have already voted:
With our early vote and absentee list data, you can also set up filters that will allow targeting of voters who will be voting absentee this election cycle and haven't yet returned their ballot. Set up a filter like the one below to target absentee voters in the next few weeks to ensure that your voters send in their ballot ahead of time and don't forget.
Good luck with your GOTV efforts, and don't forget to vote!
