Early vote totals in Texas, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington state have already surpassed entire voter turnout in the 2016 election

• As voters across the US show up to polls to cast their ballot in the 2020 General Election, four states surpassed their entire 2016 voter turnout before polls opened Tuesday.
• Early voters in Texas, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington state, cast more ballots before polls opened Tuesday than they cast during the entirety of the 2016 election, according to the US Elections Project.
• In several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon, early voter turnout reached more than 90% of the total number of ballots cast in 2016.
• Prior to Tuesday, voters cast 72.3% of the total votes counted in 2016, according to the data.

As voters across the US head to the polls to cast their ballot in the 2020 general election on Tuesday, voters in four US states had already surpassed their state turnout from the 2016 general election before polls opened.

According to data from the US Elections Project, early vote totals in Texas, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington state surpassed total turnout during the 2016 election between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and now-President Trump.

In Texas, more than 9.7 million people cast an early vote, approximately an 8% increase over the number of total votes cast in 2016, according to the data.

In Hawaii, approximately 484,000 people voted early, greater than a 10% increase over its 2016 turnout. And in Washington state, more than 3.5 million cast a ballot early this year, surpassing the state's 2016 turnout by about 5%. And in Montana, over 529,000 people voted early, surpassing 2016 turnout by more than 2%.

In several other states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon, early voter turnout did not surpass 2016 levels but surpassed 90% of total turnout in the previous general election, according to the data.

Across the country, nearly 100 million people had already voted in the election prior to the opening of polls on Tuesday, according to the US Elections Project. As a whole, US voters' early ballots cast represent 72.3% of the total votes counted in 2016, according to the data.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, states across the US expanded early voting options, including mail-in-voting, and encouraged residents to prepare ahead to avoid crowding polling places.