As of October 30, after six weeks of early voting, the Secretary of State reports that county auditors have received 78,778 ballots for South Dakota’s midterm election. That means 12.5%—one out of eight—of South Dakota’s active registered voters have cast ballots before election day, with more early ballots sure to come in Monday and Tuesday.
Republicans have cast over half of those received early votes, as would be expected of the party that makes up more than half of the electorate. But Democrats appear to be leading in early-voting enthusiasm. 17.2% of registered Democrats have submitted early ballots, compared with 12.6% of registered Republicans. Only 8.5% of independent/non-affiliated voters have cast early ballots. Libertarians have mustered only 4.6% of their registered ranks to vote early, lower than the 5.2% early-participation rate of voters in the “Other” category.
Based on the increasing rate at which early ballots have come in each week since early voting opened on September 18, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more than 10,000 more early ballots come in by Tuesday, putting the total early vote near 90,000. Early ballots cast in the 2022 midterm totaled 81,142.