You’re confusing early voting with absentee voting; the latter involves mailing in a paper ballot, while early voting involves going to one of many designated polling places in the County, showing a photo ID, verification of valid voter registration and then voting. This is in Texas, of course.
I stand corrected. We don’t have that kind of early voting where I live. We have mail in voting, though. It used to be absentee voting, but then it changed to where you don’t have to be absent, just lazy.