Nearly a third of registered Vermont voters have already cast their ballot in this year's Nov. 5 general election, according to data released Oct. 28 by the Vermont Secretary of State's Office.
Of the more than 450,000 ballots mailed to registered voters in recent weeks, 31% have been returned - either by mail or in person to municipal clerks - the office said.
That's a slight uptick compared to 2022, when 27% of ballots had been returned a week out from the election. That year, nearly 60% of registered Vermont voters ultimately cast ballots, making it the state's highest-turnout midterm election in decades.
Of those who voted, nearly two-thirds did so using absentee ballots, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
Two years before that, more than 44% of the state's registered voters had returned their ballot by the week before the 2020 election, the first year that Vermont sent ballots to all voters, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall turnout that year exceeded 73%, a record for a presidential year. Of those who voted in 2020, more than three-quarters used absentee ballots.
This year's data shows that turnout thus far has varied by region.
More than 32% of Chittenden, Washington, and Grand Isle county registered voters had returned their ballots as of Monday, while only 20% of Essex county voters had done so.
Perhaps contributing to this is that a small number of municipalities had unusually high rates of ballots marked as "undeliverable," meaning that the postal service could not locate the address of the registered Vermonter.
The city of Newport, for example, had 28% of its ballots marked as undeliverable. (Overall, according to the Secretary of State's Office, less than 5% of ballots were marked as undeliverable or had other issues.)
Vermonters who have not yet mailed in their ballot should consider dropping it off instead. Ballots received after Nov. 5 are not counted.
The U.S. Postal Service said it plans to take "extraordinary measures" to move ballot mail by Election Day. It said that during the 2020 general election, 99.89% of ballots sent by mail nationwide were delivered to election officials within seven days.
Early voters can choose to drop off their ballot at their town or city clerk's office before Election Day instead of mailing it. They can also opt to vote in person on Nov. 5 at a local polling place, either by bringing the ballot they received in the mail or by requesting a new one at the polls.
Vermonters who are not currently registered to vote or who have recently moved can still register on Election Day at their polling place.
This News item by Erin Petenko originally appeared in VTDigger and was republished in The Commons with permission.