A Michigan early voter during the primaries.
Photo: Nic Antaya/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Election Day 2024 formally occurs on Tuesday, November 5. For federal elections, this date is set by federal law, but currently all states and most localities follow it for their own contests in presidential-election years. To hear Donald Trump tell it, all voting should occur on that date and only on that date and, with a few exceptions, should be conducted in person. And in 2020, Trump insisted that only votes counted by Election Night should matter (a principle his own team violated then and is planning to violate this year by making it very difficult to expeditiously count votes), providing his rationalization for claiming victory when a huge number of votes had not yet been counted.
But in reality, for many years the states have supplemented Election Day voting by “convenience voting.” This comes in two forms: mail ballots (some styled originally as “absentee ballots” with a recent move toward “no-excuse mail ballots” that anyone can access) and voting in person at precinct or county voting locations during specified “windows” before Election Day. To be clear, Republicans by and large supported all sorts of convenience voting until Trump began attacking voting by mail in 2020, and even he has grudgingly backed it this year. So from a practical point of view, Election Day 2024 will begin much earlier in most states and particularly in the seven battleground states most observers think will decide the presidential election. Here, a rundown of when voting actually starts in battleground states:
- Arizona: Mail ballots sent out between October 9 and October 12. Must be received by Election Day. In-person voting also begins on October 9 and concludes on November 1.
- Georgia: Mail ballots sent out between October 7 and October 11. Must be received by Election Day. In-person voting also begins on October 7 and concludes on November 1.
- Michigan: Mail ballots sent out beginning September 21 and must be received by Election Day. In-person voting begins on October 27 and concludes on November 3.
- Nevada: An all-mail-ballot state; ballot dispatch dates are determined by the counties, but all must be received by November 9 (if postmarked by November 5 and/or postmarks are illegible). Mail ballots can be cast in person between October 19 and November 1.
- North Carolina: Mail ballots sent out beginning September 6 and must be received by Election Day. In-person voting begins on October 17 and concludes on November 2.
- Pennsylvania: Mail ballots sent out beginning September 16 and must be received by Election Day. In-person voting begins on September 16 as well (it’s technically absentee voting in person) and ends on Election Day.
- Wisconsin: Mail ballots sent out beginning September 19 and must be received by Election Day. In-person voting begins on October 22 and ends on November 3.
Team Trump has pitched many fits politically and in the courts about the 17 states that allow mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received and counted later, claiming this practice illegally extends Election Day. But there’s only one battleground state — Nevada — that falls into this category. In any event, we have every reason to believe that if Trump loses, he will again try to extend Election Night with a slow count and a contested outcome.
But at the other end of the process, Election Day really begins on September 6, when North Carolina starts sending out mail ballots, and continues that same month with the dispatch of mail ballots in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So votes will be “banked” for both major-party candidates long before many of the dramatic events of the Harris-Trump contest will unfold. That’s worth remembering when allegedly “game-changing” moments occur. They won’t affect votes already cast.
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