DES MOINES, Iowa (MCT) — A decade ago, strategist Karl Rove launched the Republican Party’s “72-hour” plan: a massive door-knocking and phone effort in the final three days before the election that helped generate victories in 2002 and 2004. Early voting this year has rendered Rove’s idea obsolete.

Ballots have landed on kitchen tables in North Carolina, where two-thirds or more of the vote will likely be cast early. In-person voting starts Thursday in Iowa, a swing state where election season has assumed biblical proportions: 40 days and nights leading up to Nov. 6. Before this month is out, 30 states will be voting. And when Election Day dawns, more than 45 million Americans are expected to have already voted, a record number.