Iowa votes early by absentee ballot. Voters can request a ballot by mail, or vote one in person at the county auditor's office or a satellite station from October 14, 20 days before Election Day, through November 2. This site tracks absentee ballots requested, issued (mailed or handed out) and received by the auditor, from the Secretary of State's daily statistics, against the same day in 2022 and 2024. Iowa registers voters by party: Democratic, Republican, No Party, and a small group of other parties.
Source: the Iowa Secretary of State's daily absentee ballot statistics (PDFs by county, congressional district, state Senate and state House district), pulled each morning before county offices open, so each one covers through the day before. Past cycles use every daily snapshot the SOS kept in its final 2022 and 2024 files. Registered voters (active plus inactive) come from the SOS voter registration totals for early October of each year.
Where 2026 stands
By party
Requested, issued, received
Cumulative absentee ballots
Show data tables for these charts
Every county against 2022 and 2024
Return rate by party
Each party's cumulative share of absentee ballots received: 2026 so far vs 2022, same day
Share of all absentee ballots received through each day with an SOS snapshot (cumulative, not that day alone), against the same number of days before Election Day in the comparison year (party at the time). "± pts" is 2026 minus that year: read down a column to see how each party's share is shifting day to day. The margin is Democratic minus Republican, in points of all ballots received so far; "Shift" is 2026's margin minus the comparison year's.
Mail vs in person
"In person" means ballots voted at the county auditor's office (the SOS's "Counter / In-Office") or at a satellite voting station. "Mail" includes ballots returned by mail, in a county drop box, or by e-mail or fax (military and overseas voters). "Care facility" ballots are delivered to and collected from hospital and nursing-home residents by a bipartisan team of election officials.
Who's voting, per 100,000 registered voters
Absentee ballots received ÷ registered voters (active plus inactive) in the same party in early October of that year, per 100,000 of them, so groups of very different size can be compared.
The bar runs from 0.5× (left) to 2× (right) on a log scale, with the tick at 1×.
Map: where ballots are coming in
All 99 counties on one scale. Click or tap a county to make it the geography for every section.