By the time polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, almost 1.17 million Bay Staters had already cast their ballots — a 22.3% turnout rate for early in-person and mail-in voting in this year’s statewide contests. 

Secretary of State William Galvin’s office said 1,168,590 ballots had been submitted early — 821,244 (70.3%) of them came in by mail and 347,346 (29.7%) were cast in person. 

And there are nearly a quarter of a million votes in limbo — 242,125 mail ballots, or 22.8% of those mailed from election offices, remained unreturned as of Tuesday morning. Those votes can still count if the voter puts the ballot into a drop box by 8 p.m. Tuesday, or if the ballot is postmarked by Tuesday and is delivered to election officials by Friday, Nov. 6.

Galvin said Monday that he had noticed “a dramatic increase in early in-person vote” this year while voting by mail was “about the same as it was” in 2022. He attributed some of that trend to “the desire of voters to have the opportunity to vote on the [nine ballot] questions slowly, at least take as much time as they need.”

Early in-person voting in the 2022 midterm elections accounted for about 7.5% of all votes cast, or more than 188,400. In the higher turnout 2024 election capped by the race for president, early in-person voting reached 17% of votes cast. 

In terms of sheer turnout rate, tiny Gosnold led the way among early voting with 43.5% of the town’s roughly 90 voters casting a ballot ahead of Election Day. Eastham and Orleans follow in second and third with early turnout rates of 43.1% and 42.9%, respectively. Stow (40.7%) and Lincoln (40.3%) round out the top five. 

Among the 73 communities with at least 20,000 registered voters in this election, Needham has the highest turnout rate at 36.1%, followed by Falmouth (35.6%), Lexington (35.5%), Arlington (34.5%) and Melrose (32.7%). 

Early voting was less intense in many of Massachusetts’s cities. Among communities with 20,000 voters or more, Springfield had the lowest turnout during early voting, 8.3% compared to the statewide rate of 22.3%. Lawrence (8.5%), New Bedford (9.8%), Lowell (10.9%), Chelsea and Fall River (both 11.3%) are just slightly ahead of Springfield.

Voters on Tuesday will decide the fate of nine ballot questions, 200 legislative seats, nine seats in the U.S. House, one U.S. Senate seat and all six constitutional offices, including governor. 

Colin Young is the deputy editor for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach him at colin.young@statehousenews.com.