Data dive: What Maine's early mail-in ballots can tell us

AUGUSTA — With a little more than a week until the November 5 election, a good percentage of Maine voters has already voted. Another sizeable group of Mainers have requested ballots but have not yet returned them. While how voters marked their ballots is not known, what is known is the party affiliation of those who have requested ballots.

Maine does not provide numbers for walk-in early or absentee voters; however, many town clerks have been reporting a brisk business at the various town offices. All of the data for this story came from the Maine Secretary of State’s website.

In a series of charts, we are showing what is a snapshot in time — the numbers that existed on October 25. Voters have until election day to return their ballots, and can even walk them in to their polling place on election day itself.

This chart shows the total number of ballots that had been requested and returned by October 25. While Maine town offices can start to prepare the ballots for counting a few days before election day, the ballots themselves won’t be counted until election day itself.

This chart shows the percentage of voters requesting ballots by party affiliation. However, we do not know how the voters voted, and in several races, Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) comes into play. Democrats at this point in time do not have more than 50 percent of the number of ballots.

These are the ballots still outstanding in the first district.

In the second district, there are fewer voters, and fewer mail-in ballots. Here are the returned ballots in Maine’s second district:

Finally, these are the ballots that have not yet been returned. Voters are encouraged to hand-deliver them because if they do not get to the polling place by election day, they will not be counted.

However you choose to vote, make sure you do so by Tuesday, November 5. Polls in Maine close at 8 p.m. throughout the state. If you are not sure where your polling place is, call your local town office or city hall and speak to someone in the town clerk’s office.