Early Voting Up in Maryland in 2014!

from The Daily Record

More voters took advantage of early voting this year than in two previous elections.

Statewide, 141,590 voters—a nearly 4.2 percent overall turnout—went to early voting centers to cast ballots. The raw numbers are percentages are the highest since the state expanded the number of early voting days in 2010.

This year, voters had 10 days to cast votes at an expanded number of voting centers in every jurisdiction. Previously, early voting consisted of just six days.

Over the first six days of early voting this year 90,223 voters—2.65 percent of the total eligible voters—cast ballots. That was more than the 77,728 and 76,124 voters that came out in the same period in 2010 and 2012 respectively. In both those years, overall turnout for those days was around 2.4 percent.

The overall trend of more Democrats than Republicans taking advantage of the expanded opportunity to cast a ballot continues. This year, more than 74 percent of the overall turnout were registered Democratic voters compared to 24 percent that were registered Republicans. Unaffiliated, minor party and independent voters who were only allowed to vote in non-partisan contests rounded out the total number of early voters.

Some of the largest turnouts in terms of raw numbers came from Maryland’s largest counties but some smaller counties saw their voters come out in larger percentages.

Five jurisdictions—Baltimore City (15,884) and Anne Arundel (14,935), Baltimore (22,285), Montgomery (18,871) and Prince George’s (21,959) Counties—accounted for about two of every three votes cast.

But the largest voter turnout by percentage came from three smaller counties. Talbot County reported that more than 10 percent of its 21,905 voters took advantage of the 10 extra voting days. Kent County, with its 10,645 voters, and Queen Anne’s County, with 32,820, reported voter turnouts of nearly 7.8 and 7.2 percent respectively.

Republicans in Talbot and Queen Anne’s Counties drove overall voter turnout.

Voters will have one more chance to cast their ballot in the Primary Election on June 24.

2014 Early Voting Details, by County and Party

2014 Absentee Voting Details

More 2014 Election Reports and Statistics