/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f72424194c01b88e06ca2fd/0x0.jpg?cropX1=0&cropX2=4750&cropY1=0&cropY2=2671&w=1200&resize=1200,675&ssl=1 "More Than 2 Million People Have Already Voted In The Election")
Topline
More than two million votes have already been cast in the November election, according to data from the United States Election Project, marking a noticeable increase over voting trends in 2016 with more than a month still left before election day.
A very long line of voters wait to cast their ballots at the Fairfax County Government Center on … [+]
The Washington Post via Getty Images
Key Facts
As of press time, 2,107,150 ballots have been cast so far in states that publicly report that data and already have voting underway: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The six states reporting voter registration data—Florida, Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—report that 54.5% of their votes have been cast by registered Democrats, as compared with 21.4% by Republicans and 23.4% by unaffiliated voters.
Virginia has the most ballots cast so far with 482,674 votes, followed by Wisconsin (395,082 votes) and North Carolina (304,809), and Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who runs the Elections Project, an informational site, noted in a blog post Friday the actual number of ballots cast nationwide is likely higher, as complete records are not available for all states.
Voters in 26 states have so far requested 66,351,696 mail-in ballots, and CNN noted Friday that the number of ballot requests in 15 states had already exceeded the total number of votes cast prior to election day in 2016.
McDonald noted Friday—when the number of votes cast was still less than one million—that the increase over 2016 is likely due to state laws expanding early voting, an increase in mail-in voting due to the pandemic and voter interest, adding that achieving even nearly a million votes this far before election day “has never occurred in any American election.”
A recent Washington Post/University of Maryland poll found that 61% of registered voters prefer to vote early in this election, as compared with only 41% who said they voted early in 2016; not all states will actually start counting those votes prior to polls closing on election day, however.
Big Number
50 million. That’s the approximate number of votes cast prior to election day in 2016, according to CNN. 136,669,276 total votes were cast in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Federal Elections Commission.
Crucial Quote
“We’ve never seen so many people vote this far in advance of a presidential election before,” McDonald told the Independent Monday, when the number of votes passed the one-million mark. “We are in uncharted territory.”
Key Background
The actual act of voting has increasingly come under scrutiny in the run-up to the November election, with President Donald Trump repeatedly attacking mail-in voting as the practice becomes increasingly popular amid the Covid-19 pandemic. (Trump’s claims that mail-in voting will lead to voter fraud are not backed up by any evidence, which shows that mail-in voter fraud is extremely rare.) The reliance on mail-in voting has also increased the likelihood that the winner of the presidential election will not be known until after election day—potentially sowing chaos—which has resulted in prominent figures like Michelle Obama calling for voters to cast their ballots prior to election day. The voting milestone also comes following reports of long lines at in-person polling places in multiple states as early voting got underway in September.
What To Watch For
A number of states still have not even yet started their early voting yet, as in-person voting is only underway in nine states so far and will start throughout October in a further 38 states. Many states have also not yet started mailing ballots out to voters yet, according to state policies compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
Further Reading
One million Americans have already cast 2020 vote in ‘historic’ early voting surge (The Independent)
Surge of ballot requests already setting records in the US (CNN)
Early Vote Analysis for Sunday, Sept. 27 (U.S. Elections Project)
Huge Lines For Presidential Voting—In September (Forbes)
FBI Director Says No Evidence Of ‘National Voter Fraud Effort,’ Undercutting Trump (Forbes)
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