Pennsylvania has no early in-person voting. Before Election Day, Pennsylvanians vote by mail ballot (no-excuse mail-in or absentee). A voter can also apply, fill in and hand back a mail ballot over the counter at the county election office in a single visit. Those ballots are mail ballots too and are counted here. Everyone else votes at the polls on Tuesday, November 3, and this site doesn't track those votes.
Source: the Pennsylvania Department of State's statewide mail-ballot file on data.pa.gov. It has one row per mail-ballot application with county, party, birth month, districts, and the dates each application was filed and each ballot was sent and returned. DOS extracts it from the SURE voter registry every day. Past cycles come from the final files for the 2020, 2022 and 2024 generals. Registration comes from DOS voter registration statistics.
Where 2026 stands
By party at the same day
"Same day" means cumulative through days before each cycle's Election Day. "Other" is everyone not registered as a Democrat or Republican: no affiliation, Libertarian, Green and other parties.
Cumulative mail ballots by day
Each line is a running total by days before Election Day. Pennsylvania's general elections fall on a Tuesday, so a given day count lands on the same weekday every cycle. Past cycles run to Election Day; 2026 stops at the as-of day.
Show data tables for these charts
Every county against 2022 and 2024
Cumulative mail ballots returned in each of the 67 counties, largest first, against 2022 and 2024 by days before Election Day. Each header shows 2026 against the comparison year chosen at the top, at the same day. Click a county to make it the geography for every section.
Requests, ballots sent, returned and outstanding, by party
Applications are approved mail-ballot requests (declined applications are left out). "Outstanding" means ballots sent and not yet returned. For 2026 it also leaves out ballots the county has cancelled, for example as undeliverable or replaced. For past cycles it is ballots sent minus ballots returned by the same day. Return rate = ballots returned ÷ ballots sent. Shares shows each party's share of all applications, ballots sent, returned and outstanding, in 2026 and at the same day in the comparison year; return rates and changes stay as they are.
Each party's cumulative share of mail ballots returned: 2026 so far vs 2022, same day
Age
Age on Election Day, worked out from the birth month in the DOS file. The bands match the DOS registration statistics, so each band can be set against its registrants.
Registrants by age come from the current DOS statistics, so "% of registered" is shown for 2026 only. A handful of rows with impossible birth dates are left out of the age bands but kept in all totals.
Return rate by party and age
The share of mailed ballots that have come back, by party and age band. You can also show ballots returned per registrant, or the change from the comparison year at the same day.
Who's turning out, per 100,000 registrants
Mail ballots returned ÷ registered voters in the same party, per 100,000 of them, so parties of very different size can be compared. 2026 divides by current registration. 2020, 2022 and 2024 divide by the certified registration for that November election.
The bar runs from 0.5× (left) to 2× (right) on a log scale, with the tick at 1×.
Map: where ballots are coming back
Every county on one scale. Click or tap a county to make it the geography for every section.
Show map data as a table
Counties and districts
2026 against the comparison year at the same day. Counts from 1 to 9 show as "<10". Click a county row to select it. Congressional and legislative districts use the maps drawn in 2022, so they can be compared with 2022 and 2024 but not with 2020.
Ballots that need a fix
Pending: returned, waiting on the voter or the county
Cancelled after being returned
Counties set these codes and practices vary. Some contact voters to fix ("cure") a defective ballot, some don't, and some enter cancellations only after the election. A voter with a cancelled ballot can often still vote by provisional ballot at the polls.