Twenty-nine states begin mailing absentee ballots to voters in September and an additional nine states open up in-person voting this month.
WASHINGTON — Voting is underway in the presidential election between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Twenty-nine states begin mailing absentee ballots to voters in September and an additional nine states open up in-person voting this month. Voters in some states who requested mail ballots for the November general election have already received and returned them.
The early voting activity comes as an unprecedented number of voters are expected to vote by mail because of health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 45 states, all voters can vote by mail for the November election, and nine of those states plan to mail ballots to all registered voters.
Only six states don't offer some form of in-person early voting – either traditional voting at polling sites or in-person absentee voting.
More: Voting starts earlier than you might realize. It has Trump battling the clock in some battleground states
By the end of the first week of October, 42 states will have started sending mail ballots to voters and 17 states will have launched in-person early voting.
Here's a schedule of early voting and mail-voting in each state as well as the deadlines for voters to return their mail ballots.
Where you can vote by mail, absentee ballot in the 2020 election
Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas are the only states where absentee voting will not be available to all voters.
All voters in at least 45 states will be able to vote by mail in the elections in November as absentee voting was expanded for safety reasons during the coronavirus pandemic.
Thirty-four states had absentee voting before the pandemic, allowing any voter to vote by mail without requiring an excuse. An additional nine states either agreed to allow concerns about COVID-19 to be a valid reason to request a ballot or dropped the excuse requirement.
Nine states and the District of Columbia plan to mail ballots to all registered voters without them needing to request one.
Five of these states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington – held mail-voting elections before the pandemic. Four more – California, Nevada, Vermont and New Jersey – have since taken action to send sent ballots to all registered voters.
This month, U.S. Postal Service General Counsel Thomas Marshall warned election officials across the country that ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted.
This prompted questions from the League of Women Voters and suspicion from the American Postal Workers Union that the warnings were politically motivated.
The Postal Service has made changes this summer to limit overtime.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed mail-in voting.
Monday night, former first lady Michelle Obama implored voters: "We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can. We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow up to make sure they’re received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same."
