American voters have cast more than 47 million votes for the November 3 presidential election, dwarfing the total early voting of the 2016 election with 12 days to go, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project.
Some 47.5 million Americans have cast ballots, roughly eight times the number of early votes cast at roughly the same time before the 2016 presidential race, and up from the 47.2 million early votes cast before the day of the elections in 2016.
The increase comes after many states have expanded voting by mail and early voting in person as a safe way to vote during the coronavirus pandemic and amid voter enthusiasm to weigh the political future of Republican President Donald Trump. , who is facing a challenge problem from Democrat Joe Biden.
Biden leads Trump in national opinion polls, although polls in crucial battlefield states indicate a tighter race.
The high level of early voting has led Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who administers the US Elections Project, to predict a record turnout of around 150 million, representing 65% of voters eligible, the highest rate since 1908.
Trump has criticized the vote-by-mail, making unsubstantiated allegations that it leads to fraud. Experts have said that this type of fraud is rare.
Those attacks by the president have shown signs of depressing Republican interest in voting by mail. Democrats have roughly doubled the number of ballots returned by mail by Republicans in states reporting voter registration data by party, according to the Election Project.
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