South Carolina Early Voting Report: Closing In On A Million Ballots Cast

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Record-setting early voting in South Carolina kept right on chugging into this week, with the total number of ballots cast expected to approach (or eclipse) the one million mark early this week.

For those of you keeping score at home, through Monday of this week (October 28, 2024) a whopping 865,569 people – or 25.3 percent of South Carolina’s 3.42 million registered voters – had banked their ballots, according to SCVotes.gov. That total represented more than a third (34.2 percent) of the turnout from the 2020 election in the Palmetto State, in which 2.53 million voters cast ballots.

There are still five full days of early voting left, too.

For those of you visually inclined, our intrepidly amazing research director – Jenn Wood – has a nifty look at how early voting in the general election compares to the numbers seen during the 2024 presidential primary in February and the partisan primary races in June.

Take a look…

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Given South Carolina’s bright red tint, GOP nominee Donald Trump – who won 55 percent of the Palmetto State vote in 2016 and 2020 – is a lock to claim its nine electoral votes this cycle. In fact, no Democrat has carried the Palmetto State since Jimmy Carter in 1976 – a streak Kamala Harris isn’t going to break.

But how will early voting impact multiple contested legislative races?

In an effort to get a sense of where voters are showing up early, Jenn has created this map showing all forty-six counties based on the percentage of ballots already cast.

Leading the way (so far) is tiny McCormick County, where 38.5 percent of registered voters have already banked their ballots. At the other end of the spectrum is rural Dillon County, where only 16.6 percent of registered voters have cast their ballots ahead of time.

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Want to cast your vote ahead of time? Need to know where and how to do so? SCVotes.gov has got you covered…

Early voting is in full swing all across the country. According to the latest data from the University of Florida Election Lab, as of 11:04 a.m. EDT on Tuesday (October 29, 2024), more than 49.2 million early votes had been cast across the country. In states where voters are registered by party, 9.4 million Democrats had cast ballots (39.4 percent) compared to 8.6 million Republicans (36.3 percent) and 5.8 million (or 24.3 percent) unaffiliated.

That’s a much better early vote percentage for the GOP than seen in prior races… although its impact on the upcoming presidential race is not immediately clear.

As FITSNews previously reported, Trump has gained ground in critical battleground states in recent weeks, but according to polling averages from RealClearPolling the race remains within the margin of error nationally and in the swing states which will sway the outcome.

Keep it tuned to FITSNews for the very latest as we enter the final week of what has been the wildest political ride in recent memory…

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THE NUMBERS…

(S.C. Election Commission)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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