Philadelphia’s 2024 early voting and absentee ballot data reveal a high level of voter engagement — though still trailing the historic levels of the 2020 election — and a large proportion of Democratic voters.
Under Pennsylvania law, mail-in ballots cannot be prepared to be counted until polls open at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. However, voter party registration data from the Philadelphia Board of Elections and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania offer insight into potential trends among Philadelphia’s electorate.
The Philadelphia Board of Elections approved 230,452 mail ballot applications for Philadelphia County. Of those, 183,057 applications came from registered Democrats, 20,242 from Republicans, and 27,153 from independents.
As of Nov. 4 at 4 p.m., more than 174,000 of those ballots have been returned, according to Pennsylvania’s Daily Mail Ballot Report. Democrats make up the vast majority of returned ballots in Philadelphia County, with 142,004 ballots returned by registered Democrats, compared to 14,542 by Republicans and 17,562 by other voters.
This heavy Democratic lean reflects a broader trend across Pennsylvania, where early voting by Democrats outpaces that of Republicans, who historically prefer voting on Election Day. In 2020, President Joe Biden handily won Philadelphia County with more than 80% of the vote when combining early vote and Election Day vote totals.
Pennsylvania as a whole has seen nearly 1.8 million early and absentee votes this year, representing 19.6% of registered voters. This is significantly lower than the early voting participation rates in some key battleground states, like North Carolina at 66%, Georgia at 57%, and Michigan at 42%.
Nationally, early voting stands at 39% of registered voters, down from the 2020 surge when policies implemented for the COVID-19 pandemic boosted mail voting. In 2020, more than 2.6 million mail votes were counted in Pennsylvania in the race between Biden and former President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump.
However, Pennsylvania received nearly a million fewer ballot requests this year compared to 2020.
Mail ballots can potentially face rejection due to voter errors or missing information. In 2020, 1.3% of ballots were rejected in Pennsylvania, and a similar rejection rate is anticipated this year — just under 1% of ballots have been rejected thus far.
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