By Aaron Navarro in CBS News:

The very first vote in the Democratic presidential primaries may have been cast in Minneapolis last week. On the night of January 16, Davis Senseman was in a parking lot outside a voting center with four friends, all of whom were aiming to be among the first to vote. 

Senseman is one of about 4,500 Minnesotan voters so far to have taken advantage of early voting, which began January 17. Vermont began its own statewide early vote the next day, less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. California, another Super Tuesday state, is launching its early voting and mail-in ballot period on the day of the Iowa caucuses.  

Within the same month of the Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada voting contests, more than ten states will have begun their early voting periods: Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Idaho and Michigan, among others.

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