Montgomery County voters cast 93,190 ballots in person during Maryland's eight days of early voting for the November 3 gubernatorial general election — two-thirds more than the county's early vote in the 2022 midterms, according to Maryland State Board of Elections data reported on Monday, November 2. The early-voting period ran from Thursday, October 22 to Thursday, October 29 at 14 early voting centres across the county, and the figure does not include provisional ballots.

Source: Bethesda Magazine, reporting Maryland State Board of Elections data

Measured against the county's electorate, the 93,190 early ballots represent 13.31 per cent of Montgomery County's 700,314 eligible active voters, compared with 8.31 per cent of 673,373 eligible active voters in 2022, according to the state board's voter-file breakdown. In plain terms, roughly one in every seven or eight eligible voters in Maryland's most populous county had already voted before Election Day.

Source: Moderately MoCO, reporting Maryland State Board of Elections final turnout data

The party breakdown shows where the surge came from. Registered Democrats cast 66,238 early ballots, up 70.9 per cent from 38,753 in 2022. Registered Republicans cast 10,097 early ballots, up 21.8 per cent from 8,289. The county's registration itself underlines the shape of its electorate: more than 700,000 people are registered, of whom 58 per cent are Democrats, 14 per cent Republicans, 27 per cent unaffiliated and fewer than 2 per cent members of other parties, according to the state board figures reported by The Banner.

Younger voters were the fastest-growing part of the early electorate. Among voters aged 18 to 24, early ballots jumped to 5,245 from 2,067 in 2022 — an increase of 153.7 per cent, the state board's age breakdown shows. Election officials and analysts caution that an early-vote surge does not by itself predict the final result, but it does mean campaigns enter Tuesday with a large share of the vote already locked in.

Short of 2018, far below the presidential year

For all its growth, the 2026 early vote did not match the county's 2018 midterm turnout, when 113,315 residents voted early — the last time Montgomery County voters were choosing a new county executive during a Trump presidency, Bethesda Magazine noted. Alysoun McLaughlin, director of the Election Resilience Lab at the University of Maryland's Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, said mail-in ballots are expected to more than make up the difference: by 6 p.m. on Sunday, 141,709 mail-in ballots had been sent to Montgomery County voters, against a total of 47,014 sent in the whole of 2018.

The comparison with the presidential cycle is steeper still. Montgomery County cast 156,468 early ballots in the 2024 presidential general election, so this year's 93,190 is 40.4 per cent below that mark — the normal midterm drop-off, repeated statewide. Across Maryland, voters cast 604,396 early ballots this year, up 58.2 per cent from 381,972 in 2022 and down 39.2 per cent from 994,663 in 2024.

The mail-in picture, and the county board's reaction

Mail voting is the second half of the pre-Election Day story. As of October 31, the county had sent out 141,514 mail-in ballots and received 82,968 back, leaving 58,546 still outstanding at that point, according to state board data summarised in Moderately MoCO's Election Day guide. About 34,000 of the returned ballots were still waiting to be counted as of October 31, and more can legally arrive through November 13. Voters can still return ballots to any of the county's 58 drop boxes until 8 p.m. on Election Day.

County elections board President David Naimon welcomed the turnout. "We're thrilled that so many people took advantage of early voting," Naimon said, noting the roughly five-point increase in the early-voting share since 2022, as reported by The Banner. About 13 per cent of the county's registered voters had voted early, putting Montgomery roughly in line with the 14 per cent statewide figure.

What happens next

Election Day itself is Tuesday, November 3, with federal, state and county offices on the ballot plus three statewide ballot questions — constitutional amendments — and no county ballot questions. Results will begin to appear after polls close on Tuesday night, but close races may not be settled that night. Montgomery County's board does not canvass on Election Day; it resumes counting mail-in ballots on Thursday, November 5 and continues on November 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18, in livestreamed sessions from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with provisional ballots counted starting November 12, according to the board's canvass schedule.

For the county's large immigrant communities — including Punjabi and South Asian families across the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. — the numbers carry a practical message: early and mail voting have become the normal way this county votes, and the voters who use them are increasingly young. Anyone who has not yet voted still has the full Election Day window on Tuesday, and the mail-in count that follows will decide how long the closest races stay open.