(The Center Square) — More than 275,000 Mainers cast ballots during a nearly month-long early voting period that wrapped up on Thursday, election officials said.

From Oct. 5 until Thursday, cities and towns allowed registered voters to cast early ballots. No excuse or justification was required to submit a ballot early. Ballots can be mailed, or dropped off at city and town halls.

Local election clerks had received more than 275,000 absentee ballots, or about 28% of Maine’s 968,244 registered voters, as of Thursday, according to the Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. More than 313,000 ballots have been requested.

Bellows said mail and early voting turnout is expected to exceed the 2022 midterms, when Maine voters cast a record number of absentee ballots that turned out in high numbers on Election Day.

Voter turnout in Maine was expected to be high, driven in part by the wide-open gubernatorial and congressional races. In the 2022 midterms, nearly 61% of the state's nearly 1 million voters cast ballots through the mail and during the month-long early voting period.

Topping the statewide Nov. 3 ballot is a wide-open race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Janet Mills between Democrat Hannah Pingree, Republican Bobby Charles and Independent candidate Rick Bennett.

Maine voters will also be picking a new member of Congress to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who decided not to run for reelection. State Auditor Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, and former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, will face off for the 2nd Congressional seat Tuesday.

Republicans are bullish about flipping the seat in the swing congressional district, which Republican President Donald Trump has won three times. Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping to hold onto the congressional district as part of a broader strategy to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But the marquee race on Maine's midterm ballots is Democrat Troy Jackson's challenge to incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who is seeking another six-year term.

The latest polls show a tight contest between the two candidates in a race that is considered a must-win contest for the Democratic Party as it pushes to retake the U.S. Senate, where Republicans currently have a 53-45 majority. Election handicappers Cook Political Report and Inside Elections have both rated the Maine Senate race a "Toss Up" ahead of the midterms.

There are also contested state legislative and county-level races across the state on Tuesday's ballot.

Under state law, absentee ballots can be requested until Oct. 29, but must be returned to local election clerks by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 to be counted.