More than 23 Million have already voted 18 days before the elections in the United States
Early voting has gained wide participation across the country
WASHINGTON – More than 23 million citizens in the United States have voted in 40 states and the District of Columbia with 18 days remaining until national election day, the US Election Project (USEP) platform said on Friday .
The COVID-19 pandemic this year led a majority of the country’s states to open the option of early voting, for the personal attendance of the voter to electoral positions.
Two other options, which require the voter to request an official suffrage ballot at their district elections office, are depositing the vote in special ballot boxes and sending the vote by mail.
President Donald Trump repudiates voting by mail and has pointed out, without proof, that it is vulnerable to fraud.
In the 15 states where returned ballots identify the party, USEP data shows that 55.3% of the votes came from voters registered as Democrats, 23.8% from voters registered as Republicans, and 20.3% from voters with no party affiliation.
“With so many Democrats voting by mail while Trump supporters hear him denigrating the postal vote, I would not be surprised if early voting in person is unusually strong for the president,” said Michael McDonald , University of Florida professor and principal. of USEP.
“Election Day could be a bright ‘red’ day (the color of the Republicans) and we will see which way the balance tips when this is over,” he added.
For its part, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI) said in a statement that “millions of Americans have gone out to vote early, and that even though early voting has not started in all states.”
“And this despite the fact that the secretaries of state in Florida, Georgia and Texas are doing everything possible to slow down the process by not being adequately prepared in order to discourage people from voting due to long waits,” added USHLI, based in Chicago (Illinois).
“It doesn’t work for them. People have waited four years to vote in this election and the wait is over, ”said this group.
The states with the highest turnout of early voters to date, according to USEP, are Texas with 2.44 million, California with 2.38 million, and Florida with 2.27 million.
Nationally, the number of early votes is equivalent to almost 16% of the votes counted in the 2016 general election, in which Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won 3.2 million more votes than Republican Donald Trump, who won the presidency by majority in the Electoral College.
According to USEP data, early votes already received in Vermont equal 38.8% of the votes cast four years ago, and in New Jersey the early vote this year and today is equivalent to 32.7% of the votes in 2016.
According to this project, this year there will be almost 240 million people qualified to vote, but not all of them are registered to do so, and many do not participate in the voting.
In the previous presidential election, four years ago, there were 138.8 million votes, approximately 60% of the contingent of eligible voters.
Analysts estimate that there will be about 150 million votes this year, indicating the highest voter turnout in nearly a century.
