More than 1 million SC voters have cast absentee ballots
South Carolina hit another early voting milestone Wednesday, reaching 1 million absentee votes cast with six days still to go until the election.
Early turnout is already more than twice what it was in the 2016 general election, when a then-record 502,819 South Carolina voters returned ballots early, and is expected to continue climbing.
While long lines at some polling places received attention on the first day of in-person absentee voting, early in-person voting actually tends to increase as an election nears, South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said.
Approximately 57,000 people voted in-person absentee on Tuesday compared to roughly 19,000 who did so on Oct. 5, the first day of in-person absentee voting, he said.
Based on current rates, Whitmire said he estimates that 1.3 million or more voters are likely to cast ballots in advance of Election Day.
The explosion in absentee voting is being driven by a statewide expansion in access to early voting in concert with what are expected to be historic rates of national voter turnout.
Unlike in 2016, when absentee voting was an option for only a limited number of voters, all registered South Carolinians are permitted to vote early in the 2020 general election due to an absentee voting expansion approved in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
As of noon, 1,105,257 absentee ballots had been issued and 1,012,865 had been cast, according to the State Election Commission.
The absentee votes cast so far represent roughly 48% of the total votes counted in South Carolina in 2016.
While more South Carolinians have voted absentee in-person than absentee by-mail — 642,000 to 371,000 — the growth in mail-in voting, spurred by people opting to skip the polls out of concern for COVID-19, has been the sharpest.
Nearly three times more people have voted by mail this election cycle than in 2016.
Nationwide, more than 73 million Americans have voted early, according to the U.S. Elections Project, which is tracking early voting by state and by party registration.
Based on party registration statistics from the 19 states that provide them — excluding South Carolina, which does not have registration by party — nearly 48% of voters who have cast ballots early are registered Democrats compared to only 29.3% who are registered Republicans, according to the U.S. Elections Project. The remaining 22% of early voters have no party affiliation, according to the database.
This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 12:34 PM with the headline "More than 1 million SC voters have cast absentee ballots."