How to read thisParty split = the registered party of voters who have already cast ballots, not who they voted for. Comparisons line up 2026 with past elections at the same number of days before Election Day. Pennsylvania has no in-person early voting. Methods & sources
What the numbers say
Mail ballots returned, cumulative
Official PA DOS voter-level mail-ballot files (data.pa.gov), counted by ballot-returned date. 2024 was a presidential year.
Mail ballots returned per day
Ballots logged as returned each day by county boards.
Mail ballot applications received, cumulative
By application return date; includes permanent mail-list voters (logged early in the year).
Democratic share of returned ballots
Share of returned mail ballots from registered Democrats.
Party margin of returned ballots (D minus R, pts)
Registered Democrats minus registered Republicans, as a share of all returned ballots.
Sources & caveats
- 2026: PA Department of State, 2026 General Election Mail Ballot Requests, data.pa.gov/d/nbwd-pfn4 (updated daily)
- 2024: 2024 General Election Mail Ballot Requests (final), data.pa.gov/d/3q5t-ddp8
- 2022: 2022 General Election Mail Ballot Requests (final), data.pa.gov/d/uhfm-zhus
- Mail only. Pennsylvania has no in-person early voting; "early in person" means applying for and casting a mail ballot at a county office, which shows up here as a mail ballot.
- Past files are final. 2022/2024 come from the final datasets, so late-logged returns are counted on their actual return date; 2026 can still be back-filled for recent days. Every ballot with a return date is counted (2022 has no status field), so a small number later cancelled are included (about 0.2% in 2026).
- Party is registration, not vote choice. Democrats have used mail far more than Republicans since 2020.
- The latest full day is the day before the dataset update; the update day itself is excluded.
- No race/ethnicity: Pennsylvania doesn't collect race on voter registration.
Law changes that affect comparisons
Rule changes between cycles can shift how (not just how many) people vote early. Keep these in mind when comparing to past years.
- 2019 · Act 77: created no-excuse mail-in voting (first used in 2020) and the permanent mail-ballot list. In 2018 only excuse-based absentee voting existed, so there's no comparable 2018 series. Act 77
- Ballots must arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day and can't be processed before 7 a.m. that day (no pre-canvassing), unchanged since 2020. Undated or misdated return envelopes have been the subject of ongoing litigation since 2022. PA DOS: mail and absentee ballots