Early votes in the US account for over 50% the number of votes cast in the entire 2016 presidential election
- As of Tuesday, at least 69.4 million ballots had been cast in the 2020 US election, according to Michael McDonald at the US Elections Project.
- This figure would represent over half of all votes (50.8%) that were cast in the 2016 presidential election.
- Texas has cast 7,803,590 ballots, the most of any state.
Early voting in the US presidential election has been robust since it began a few weeks ago, but it just passed a critical milestone.
As of Tuesday, at least 69.4 million ballots had been cast in the general election, according to Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political-science professor who runs the US Elections Project.
This figure would represent over half the number of votes (50.8%) cast in the entire 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. That year, 136,669,276 votes were cast, according to the Federal Elections Commission.
Combined with Election Day votes, the rising number of early votes could represent a historic turnout once all the ballots are counted, rivaling the turnout of the 1908 US presidential election, which hit 65% of the eligible US population.
Here are the three states with the highest early-voting totals so far, based on data from the US Elections Project:
- Texas leads the way with 7,803,590 ballots cast.
- California has the second-highest total, with 7,402,302 ballots cast.
- Florida has the third-highest level, with 6,427,773 ballots cast.
Texas has voted for the Republican presidential nominee since 1980, but this year multiple polls have indicated a close race between Trump and his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
The state has long had low voter-turnout levels in its elections, but a mix of changing demographics and infrequent or first-time voters showing up in 2020 has changed the calculus of predicting the winner of the Lone Star State, according to The Guardian.