More than four million Americans have already voted in the upcoming US presidential election.
Ahead of the November 3 election, with four weeks to go before Election Day, more than 4 million Americans already have voted, according to the United States Elections Project, which compiles early voting data, more than 50 times the 75,000 at this time in 2016, as many states have adopted mail-in voting as a safe way to cast a ballot amid the coronavirus pandemic, with Biden leading Trump in national opinion polls, although surveys in crucial battleground states indicate a tighter race.
“We’ve never seen this many people voting so far ahead of an election,” said Micheal McDonald of the University of Florida, who administers the project. “People cast their ballots when they make up their minds, and we know that many people made up their minds long ago and already have a judgment about Trump.”
The numbers reported so far come from 31 states, McDonald said, and will grow rapidly as more states begin early in-person voting and report absentee mail-in totals in the next few weeks. All but about a half-dozen states allow some level of early in-person voting. Reuters adds that McDonald said early voting typically starts strong, then drops before surging just ahead of the election. But in some states, rates of participation already have skyrocketed a month out.
President Donald Trump has railed against mail-in voting, making unfounded accusations that it leads to fraud. Experts have said such fraud is rare.
