Early voting

Early voting refers to the growing trend of Americans to vote prior to Election Day, as allowed in most states.

In 2008, one-third of Americans voted prior to Election Day, and that fraction continues to increase. In the Nevada Election 2010, more than half the votes cast were by early voting.

These states allow early voting in some form:

• Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon (all voting is by mail there), South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming

Early voting data for the swing states for the Presidential Election 2012:

State	Number of Electoral College votes	When Early Voting Begins	Percentage that was early voting in 2010
Nevada	6	65%
Colorado	13	70%
Wisconsin	10	10%
Iowa	6	33%
New Hampshire	4	7%
North Carolina	15	45%
Ohio	18	25%
Virginia	13	7%
Florida	29	42.5%

There are two major objections to early voting. First, it facilitates voter intimidation, particularly by unions and large employers that try to increase turnout by their people. Second, it increases the potential for voter fraud, particularly in the absence of new protections to safeguard the integrity of electronic or physical votes.

A state-by-state analysis is available showing the percentage of ballots cast in early voting, but note that percentage is growing rapidly with each election.

Colorado

In Colorado in "2008, Democrats had about a 25,000-ballot advantage over Republicans in early voting. But Republican turnout zoomed past Democrats' on Election Day, and more Republicans than Democrats ultimately voted in 2008." In 2010, there were about 1,638,000 votes cast for the U.S. Senate seat from Colorado, but well over 1 million people participated in early voting.