More than 2.2 million Tennesseans cast ballots during early voting over the past two weeks as turnout nearly reached 46%, nearly 3% fewer than the 2020 presidential election total.
Early voting in person totaled more than 2.1 million, and over 82,000 were cast by mail through Oct. 31, the final day of early voting, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Though some involved in the presidential election are calling it the most important one in this era, early voting numbers don’t quite match that view, falling 2.89%. Tennessee typically sees about half of voters go to the polls early.
Early voting turnout in the 2020 presidential election between current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump reached about 2.3 million, nearly 66,000 more than cast ballots so far in this year’s election between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump.
Both early voting totals, though, are much higher than in 2016 when 1.67 million Tennesseans cast ballots early as Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State’s figures show.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County surpasses 2016, 2020 early voting totals)
Among the state’s biggest counties, Davidson, typically a stronghold for Democrats, showed a major decline in early voting from four years ago, dropping off 13.3% as 219,000 cast ballots early compared to 253,000 in 2020.
Davidson County Elections Administrator Jeff Roberts said the difference could be that 34,000 people voted by absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared to 13,000 this year, a difference of 21,000. All of those are counted as mail-in ballots.
Absentee balloting fell off by nearly 61% this fall to 82,000 from 210,000 in 2020 when many voters were afraid to go to the polls and risk catching COVID-19. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state to give voters more exceptions to vote absentee four years ago.
Davidson County was split into three congressional districts before the 2022 vote, a move that gave Republicans an advantage in winning all three seats and forced longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper to step away from Congress.
Early voting in Shelby County, another focal point for Democrats, fell off even more dramatically, dropping by 20.9% to just under 258,000 this fall from 326,000 in 2020. Shelby County’s decrease of 68,000 early voters topped the total state decline of 65,900.
(READ MORE: Get ready for Election Day: How and where to vote in Tennessee, Georgia)
Hamilton County, in contrast, saw a 13.2% increase with 117,000 casting ballots early compared to 103,500 four years ago.
Knox County reported a small decrease, down .61% to over 170,000 from almost 172,000 in 2020.
Rutherford County also reported a 2.7% decrease in early voting, dipping to 117,000 from 120,000 four years ago. In addition, Williamson County dipped .57%, from 122,000 in 2020 to 121,500 this year.
Secretary of State spokesperson Doug Kufner said early voting ran well because of the work of county election commission staff and poll workers statewide.
“Enthusiasm across Tennessee through the 14 days of early voting was evident, as Tennessee saw more than 2.13 million registered voters cast their ballots in person — a new record. Seventy-six counties also exceeded their in-person early voting turnout from 2020. We anticipate a robust Election Day turnout, and we encourage all registered Tennesseans who have not yet voted to make their voice heard on Nov. 5,” Kufner said in a statement.
In spite of disruptions from Hurricane Helene, most of the counties that suffered from massive flooding reported early voting increases. In some instances, election officials in those counties had to change voting sites because of flood damage and road outages.
Greene County, for instance, experienced an early voting increase of 30.4% with almost 20,000 casting ballots this year, compared to 15,000 in 2020.
Carter County saw early voting increase by 21.2% with almost 15,000 participating this year compared to 12,000 four years ago.
Washington County experienced a 6.8% jump in early voting totals, going to almost 46,000 from around 43,000.
Johnson County saw a small increase of 1.92% as early voting went up to 5,474 from 5,371 in 2020. Cocke County also saw a bit of an increase with early voting jumping 3.3%, to 10,600 from 10,300 in 2020.
Unicoi County saw a slight decline of 1.73% to 6,067 this year from 6,174 four years ago.
Read more at TennesseeLookout.com.