EarlyVoting.com is a website with a simple, no-nonsense purpose: it tells you if you can vote early in your state, tells you how to get it done (including links to state voter registration sites), and when to get it done by. You can share simple, memorable links with friends and family to nudge them to the polls, e.g. earlyvoting.com/minnesota, and all the gotchas like ID requirements and registration deadlines are laid out plainly enough to print out and stick on your fridge.
With the election coming close, many already decided citizens are just waiting for their opportunity to vote. Fortunately, 40 states (plus District of Columbia) allow some form of voting before the election on November 3rd.
Each state has its own rules, deadlines and terminology for voting before the general election. Some call it "early voting" or "in-person absentee". Others are mailing out ballots in advance which you can mail back or drop off in secure boxes or at county offices. Some states conclude early voting several days before the election.
This site attempts to make finding the details for your state's early voting rules convenient and accurate. Get your vote in early and relax.
It's created by Jared Kofron and Dean Putney (Boing Boing's former dev lead and occasional contributor), who realized how important mail voting was when knocking on doors for a U.S. House candidate in the 2018 election.
"The #1 thing we spoke to voters about was voting by mail so we could count on their ballot getting in," Putney writes. "Early voting is getting a lot of attention in this election because it is done in person and eliminates some of the concerns people have about voting by mail– that your ballot won't get there in time to be counted, that it's not filled in correctly, or otherwise discounted."
