Take note, procrastinators: Monday is Tennessee’s deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 5 general election. 

The ballot includes races for president, a U.S. Senate seat, all nine congressional seats, all 99 state House seats and 16 of 33 state Senate seats.

As of June 1, the state had 4.8 million active voter registrations on file.

If history is any guide, the majority of Tennesseans will take advantage of early voting and absentee ballots. In the 2020 presidential election cycle, 75% of of Tennessee voters cast early or absentee ballots. 

State lawmakers passed the legislation permitting early voting in 1994. But some in the then-Democratic led House and Senate voted against it.

The early voting period runs from Oct. 16 through Oct. 31. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 29.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Performance Index for 2020 doesn’t cast a favorable light on Tennessee voter performance. While the national average turnout for state’s was 77%, Tennessee’s was 60%, placing the Volunteer State at No. 37 among states. The report says 10% of registrations were rejected. So were 3% of military and overseas ballots.

Shelby County, the state’s largest county which includes Memphis, has just over 600,000 registered voters, an increase of more than 7,000 since May, the Daily Memphian reports. The county is home to one of the election seasons’ most competitive races between Republican state Rep. John Gillespie and Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth.

The Davidson County Election Commission website states 507,000 voters cast ballots in the August primary.

Last year, Republican state Rep. Elaine Davis of Knoxville triggered a minor uproar when she introduced a wide-ranging caption bill that would have eliminated early voting. Davis quickly dropped the measure.

When Democrats pushed for creating an early voting period in Tennessee in 1994, Republicans heavily opposed the idea on arguments that the change would create opportunities for fraud. The GOP also privately worried the change could give an advantage to Democrats by boosting overall voter turnout.

When the bill came up for a vote in the Senate, it won approval along straight party lines, 18-15. But the GOP’s doomsday scenarios didn’t come to pass — Republicans flipped both U.S. Senate seats that fall, and Democrats have won only one open statewide race since.