Nebraska Early Vote 2026: Daily Tracker vs 2018, 2022 & 2024

Data as of: see below

How to read thisParty split = the registered party of voters who have already cast ballots, not who they voted for. In the Senate race, Dan Osborn is an independent running against Pete Ricketts, so Democratic-minus-Republican splits don't map onto that race; watch the nonpartisan/other group too. Comparisons line up 2026 with past elections at the same number of days before Election Day. Nebraska's Secretary of State doesn't post daily early-vote figures, so 2026 daily numbers and the 2022 same-day comparison come from secondary trackers (marked †). Early ballots are not a forecast of the result. Methods & sources

🙏 Thanks to @ne2earlyvote for offering their Nebraska early-vote data. This page uses their figures for the 2022 same-day comparison and the NE-2 district totals, and to cross-check the daily civicAPI numbers (marked †). Source: @ne2earlyvote's Nebraska tracker, built from the Secretary of State's official early-voting lists.

What the numbers say

Ballots cast vs. ballots sentThis page counts ballots already cast (mail returned + in person, from civicAPI †). Counting every ballot sent instead, including the heavily Republican all-mail rural precincts whose ballots went out Oct 9, gives Republicans a statewide lead: R+9.4 at 18 days out, still 2.3 points more Democratic than 2022's R+11.7 at the same point (from @ne2earlyvote's tracker †). Both are correct; they measure different things.

Early votes cast statewide, cumulative (mail returned + in person)

2026 daily line: civicAPI (†). Dots: @NE2EarlyVote's figures from the state files for 2026 and for 2022 at the same days out (†). Official checkpoints: 2024 Secretary of State releases (7 and 1 days out). 2018: hollow dot = derived from a news report quoting the Secretary of State (requests minus ballots not yet returned, 5 days out). Days out use the state file date; votes run through the day before.

Party lead of early votes cast, statewide

Democratic share minus Republican share of all early votes cast, in points. 2026 civicAPI (†) and @NE2EarlyVote (†); 2022 @NE2EarlyVote (†). Registered voters statewide are about 49% Republican and 26% Democratic (SOS, Oct 1, 2026), so a Democratic lead in early votes is normal here.

2026 ballots requested vs returned, by party †

Latest civicAPI file. "Returned" here = mail ballots returned plus early in-person votes. The labels show each group's return rate.

NE-2 (Omaha) district view

NE-2 is all of Douglas and Saunders counties plus western Sarpy County (2021 map). District totals come from @NE2EarlyVote (†), who assigns ballots to districts from the state files. civicAPI (†) reports by county only, so the Douglas County line below (about 87% of NE-2's registered voters) is the closest daily view; Sarpy County is split between NE-1 and NE-2.

NE-2 early votes cast: 2026 vs 2022 †

Same days before Election Day, from @NE2EarlyVote.

NE-2 party lead: 2026 vs 2022 †

Dem minus Rep share of early votes cast in NE-2, points. Registered voters in NE-2: 37% Republican, 34% Democratic, 26% nonpartisan (SOS, Oct 1, 2026).

Douglas County daily, 2026 (civicAPI †)

Mail ballots returned + early in-person votes, by registered party, with the share of Douglas requests that have come back.

NE-2 table

Final early votes by cycle (official canvass)

Early ballots counted in each general election, from the Secretary of State's official canvass books: early voting plus all-mail precincts (small counties and precincts where every voter gets a mail ballot). Douglas County has no all-mail precincts. 2024 was presidential.

Counties (latest file, civicAPI †)

Largest counties by early votes cast. D−R = Democratic minus Republican share of votes cast, points.

Cross-check: civicAPI vs @NE2EarlyVote (both †)

Both trackers draw on Nebraska's state early-vote files. On the same file dates civicAPI's statewide total runs slightly lower, and the party lead matches within a few tenths of a point. The "vs 2022" comparison uses @NE2EarlyVote's own 2026 and 2022 numbers so both years come from one method.

Sources & caveats

2026 daily (secondary †): civicAPI Nebraska tracker (returned, in person, requested; county files by region). Party = Democratic, Republican, and "Other" (nonpartisan plus minor parties).
2022 same-day and NE-2 district figures (secondary †): charts posted on X by @NE2EarlyVote ("Nebraska Election Data"), built from the state files: statewide, Oct 16, NE-2, Oct 16, NE-2, Oct 15, NE-2 independents. Numbers were copied by hand from their charts. They post through-dates; this page shifts them one day to the state file date to match civicAPI. The ballots-sent figures above come from @ne2earlyvote's Nebraska tracker, built from the official Secretary of State early-voting lists (2020, 2022 and 2024 finals and 2026 daily files).
Official (Nebraska Secretary of State): Oct 10, 2022 release (164,611 ballots requested and sent), Oct 29, 2024 release (363,629 sent; 249,235 accepted incl. 46,459 in person), Nov 4, 2024 release (332,455 cast); canvass books 2018, 2022, 2024; voter registration statewide/county and by congressional district, Oct 1, 2026.
News (secondary †): AP, Nov 2018 (2018 requests); KETV, Oct 8, 2024 and WOWT, Nov 5, 2022 (Douglas County); KOLN, Oct 15, 2026 (Lancaster County).
All rows: ne-data.csv

No official daily figures. The Secretary of State sells its early-voting file and doesn't post daily statistics, and the county sites (Douglas, Lancaster) don't post daily counts either. Official numbers come only from occasional press releases and the final canvass. This tracker watches the SOS releases page for new figures.
The state file can lag the counties. On Oct 15, Lancaster County's election commissioner said his office had sent 83,000 ballots and about half had come back. The state-file figures show 38,177 requested and 15,773 returned there as of the Oct 16 file. Statewide 2026 totals here may undercount, and it isn't known whether the 2022 files lagged the same way.
Same-day comparisons: 2022 only, from @NE2EarlyVote, 19–27 days out so far. 2018 and 2024 have official or news checkpoints 7, 5 and 1 days out, which 2026 reaches Oct 27–Nov 2.
Party: "Other" = nonpartisan plus Libertarian, Legal Marijuana NOW and other parties. Nebraska's voter registration doesn't ask for race, so there is no race chart.
Senate race: Osborn is an independent, so registered Democrats and Republicans don't line up with his race. Nonpartisan and minor-party voters are 22.5% of registered voters statewide (SOS, Oct 1, 2026).

Law changes that affect comparisons

Rule changes between cycles can shift how (not just how many) people vote early.

Voter ID (Initiative 432, 2022; first used in 2024): voters requesting an early ballot must give a driver's license or state ID number, a copy of a photo ID, or a reasonable-impediment certificate. 2024 was the first general election under it, so 2022 and 2018 requests had no ID step. KETV, 2024; Douglas County Election Commission
All-mail precincts: counties may mail every voter a ballot in small precincts or whole counties. Those ballots are counted separately in the canvass (21,400 in 2018, 38,525 in 2022, 46,417 in 2024) and arrive in batches, which can move the statewide party split. @NE2EarlyVote reports that the 2026 all-mail ballots went out about five days earlier than in past years (†, not confirmed officially).
Calendar (unchanged): mail ballots go out 35 days before the election, early in-person voting at county offices starts 30 days before, and mail requests close the second Friday before Election Day (Oct 23, 2026). Nebraska SOS