California's 2024 General Election: Voting Methods and Early Voting

The use of vote-by-mail ballots in California has become increasingly common over the past decade, due to expanded voting options in the state. After a steady increase in the share of votes being cast via vote-by-mail ballots, the 2020 general election saw a notable jump in use due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s decision to send every registered voter a ballot. To ensure a safe election, California sent every registered voter a vote-by-mail ballot in the 2020 general election, a policy that was later made permanent in Fall 2021. Voting method trends seen in 2020 continued into the 2022 midterm election cycle in an environment less restricted by COVID-19.

With the expansion of vote-by-mail access made permanent and COVID-19 becoming less of a consideration for many voters on how and when to vote, many policy makers and voter advocates are questioning whether the voting behaviors in the 2020 and 2022 general elections such as the widespread use of vote-by-mail ballots—will continue in future elections at the same level. To address this speculation, CID conducted a statewide analysis of voter behavior in the 2024 general election. In this report, we examine voting methods and vote by- mail ballot rejections in the 2024 general election broken out by race, ethnicity, age group, party affiliation, gender and language designation.