Rhode Islanders showed up in record numbers to vote early in this year’s midterm elections.
According to unofficial data from the Rhode Island Board of Elections, 112,068 Rhode Islanders — around 31% of those who voted — voted early during the 2026 midterm elections. In 2022, the state’s early voting rate was only 20%, with about 71,737 of 361,449 Rhode Islanders voting early.
“This was the highest early voting turnout for a gubernatorial election in R.I., surpassing the only other year early voting was available, in 2022,” Miguel Nunez, executive director of the R.I. Board of Elections, wrote in an email to The Herald.
To understand the surge in early voting, The Herald spoke to R.I. voting experts and policymakers to find out what motivated this shift and how it might affect future elections.
In order to ensure early voting was an effective option for Rhode Islanders, the BOE took steps prior to the election such as sending their “fastest and most modern equipment to high-volume early voting sites” and “passing comprehensive Early Voting Conduct regulations over the summer to ensure a uniform experience for voters across the state,” Nunez wrote.
The R.I. Department of State also took affirmative efforts to encourage early voting, according to Director of Communications and Public Affairs Faith Chybowski. “We do emphasize that voting by mail or voting early can mitigate some of the potential barriers to voting on Election Day, such as an unforeseen scheduling conflict or an illness,” Chybowski wrote in an email to The Herald.
But voting by mail actually saw a decrease during this year’s midterms — despite an increase in total voting numbers. Compared to the 34,304 in 2022, the BOE received a total of 30,493 mail-in ballots this year.
“Coming out of the pandemic, it became easier to vote early,” Common Cause Rhode Island Executive Director John Marion said in an interview with The Herald. “As we’re settling into a pattern, we’re finding that mail voting is less popular.”
This decline in popularity could be partially attributed to the fact “that the President has spent years demonizing voting by mail,” Marion added, referencing President Trump’s attempts to restrict the delivery of mail-in ballots to certain individuals.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Some of the uncertainty that (those attempts) created drove some people who might like the convenience of not voting on Election Day, but who would have voted by mail, to vote early in-person,” he added.
In a statement emailed to The Herald, R.I. Secretary of State Gregg Amore expressed similar sentiments about the Trump administration’s efforts to influence the methods by which people vote.
“I was glad to see Rhode Islanders come out and vote early,” Amore wrote. “While the federal government worked to undermine voters’ confidence in mail ballots and our elections system overall, Rhode Islanders took their vote into their own hands.”
This summer, a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed Trump to implement some changes to mail-in voting, but did not address his proposed requirement that USPS verify the voting eligibility of each individual who requests a mail ballot according to a government-created list.
Chybowski added that “it is possible that conversation around potential changes to (United States Postal Service) procedures — even though no changes were actually implemented ahead of this election — influenced some voters.”
The United States Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I absolutely think that recent federal efforts to curb mail voting have led to fewer voters casting mail ballots in the state,” Nunez wrote.
“Overall, we have seen the number of mail ballots being requested trending down since 2020,” he wrote. “But several high-profile executive orders and lawsuits as well as proposed rules by the U.S. Postal Service have likely led some voters to put less trust in voting by mail.”
Nunez shared that the BOE continues to advertise mail voting in Rhode Island as a “secure method of voting with numerous safeguards in place.”
“It remains as great an option in 2026 as it did in 2020,” he added.
Marion added that the rise in early voting will lead to changes during the campaigning period. “Campaigns are going to learn to mobilize their voters to vote early,” Marion said, noting a “Bike to Vote” event hosted by Providence Mayor-elect David Morales MPA’19 in late October. Marion also expects the media to “schedule debates earlier, before early voting starts.”
This year’s final gubernatorial debate took place on Oct. 20, almost a full week after early voting began.
Legislative efforts to encourage the state to accommodate early voting procedures are also underway.
The R.I. Department of State plans to submit legislation requiring cities and towns to provide at least one early voting day on a weekend ahead of general elections, Chybowski wrote.
In-person polling places are expensive to operate, and because “the demand is not there the way it was pre-early voting,” Marion said that “there may be an effort to consolidate polling places on Election Day.,”
“We should be learning from these voting data trends to inform future policy decisions around voting options,” Amore wrote.
Annika Melwani is a metro senior staff writer covering state politics and justice. She is from New York City and plans on concentrating in English and International and Public Affairs. In her free time, she can be found reading or drinking an iced vanilla latte.
