Type of Early and Absentee Voting Policies (based on five categories)
In 1980, only three states, California, Oregon and Washington, permitted no-excuse absentee balloting; the other 47 states permitted absentee balloting only with an excuse. By 2008, the number of states requiring an excuse for absentee balloting had decreased to 22. California, Colorado, Montana and Washington have gone a step further to allow persons to request permanent absentee status without an excuse, thus negating the need to request an absentee ballot with each election. In 2000, Oregon dispensed with polling-places altogether (except at county administrative offices) and moved to all-mail balloting for primary and general elections.
This statistic measures what types of early voting options are available in each state. This measure is primarily concerned with what options are available that do not require an excuse. For example, while in every state a citizen can mail in an absentee ballot before the election with an excuse, in 28 states citizens have the option to vote by mail without any excuse. Forty-nine states have been classified on the basis of whether they have no-excuse early voting by mail and whether they have no-excuse early voting in person. The last state, Oregon, conducts all elections by mail and thus is categorized separately. These data were taken from the Early Voting Information Center located at http://www.earlyvoting.net/. Dr. Michael McDonald, Associate Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University, provided consulting support on developing and analyzing these data.
