Minnesota is on pace to accept more absentee ballots for this year's election than it did in the 2018 midterms — but far fewer than during the worst of the pandemic.
As of Thursday, the state had accepted 282,277 absentee ballots, about 33,000 more than at this time four years ago, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office.
The total falls far below the record number of absentee ballots accepted for the 2020 election as the COVID-19 pandemic raged without vaccines yet available. That year, 1.9 million Minnesotans voted absentee as the virus spread widely.
The data released Thursday suggests early voting has returned to levels seen before the pandemic, as fewer Minnesotans are concerned about voting in person on Election Day.
But Secretary of State Steve Simon said this year's absentee ballot total also signals that more Minnesotans have warmed to early voting.
"It's very interesting to me that we are ahead of the pace for absentee balloting in 2018," Simon said. "I think there were a number of Minnesotans that in 2020, sort of got a taste for voting from home in particular and liked it."
Of the roughly 282,000 absentee ballots accepted this year, about 55% were cast by mail and the rest cast in person, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
In 2020, 58% of Minnesotans voted absentee, Simon said, compared with 24% in the 2018 midterm elections. He expects this year's final absentee voting rate to be higher than four years ago.
