Early voting is at all-time high
Election Day is two weeks away, and Americans are voting early at a record pace.
As of Tuesday, at least 34 million voters have already cast their ballots, according to the U.S. Elections Project, which is tracking early voting data. That number is based on data from all but four states — Idaho, New York, Missouri and Arkansas — which the project says haven’t reported numbers.
The project also says more than 83 million people have requested absentee ballots in a year where a record number of Americans are expected to vote by mail due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Texas has cast the most votes so far, with more than 4.6 million, followed by California with more than 3.9 million and Florida with more than 2.9 million.
Others — including some key battleground states such as North Carolina and Ohio — have cast more than 1 million.
About 5.9 million Americans had voted early around this time in 2016, the U.S. Election Project wrote Sunday in its weekly data analysis.
The number of ballots cast in the 2020 election so far accounts for about 24.5% of all ballots cast in 2016.
And 2016 was also a record-breaking year for early voting, when about 40% of voters cast their ballots early, the elections project says.
While voting this year is on a record pace, the elections project says the ratio compared to 2016 has started to narrow. Last week, early voting numbers were about 6.5 times what they were at the same point in 2016 while this week they’re running at about five times that number, the project’s analysis on Sunday says.
“The ratio of 2020 early vote to 2016 early vote is going to come down simply because it is impossible that early voting is going to be six times what it was in 2016,” the analysis says.
