Early voting rates surprise Americans news

The number of Americans who cast their votes during early voting in the 2024 elections reached more than 77 million, a number that surprised many observers, and is an indication of the intensification of the competition between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

According to data monitored by the Elections Laboratory at the University of Florida as of Sunday, the total number of early votes reached 77 million and 366 thousand votes, including 42 million by in-person voting and 35 million by mail.

The Washington Post indicated that this large turnout means that many Americans no longer wait until polling day, and that the matter has turned into “election season” instead of “election day.”

The newspaper said that early voting this year is approximately half of the total tally for Election Day and early voting in 2020.

Records for early voting were broken in a number of states. In the state of Georgia – one of the seven swing states in these elections – 4 million voters cast their ballots, which is equivalent to 80% of the total vote in the state in 2020.

In North Carolina – which is also one of the seven states – more than 4.2 million Americans cast their votes.

Across the country, the number of voters who voted early this year exceeded the numbers recorded in the 2012 and 2016 elections.

The 2020 rate is still the highest in history, when the elections took place in light of the “Covid-19” pandemic, and health concerns and precautionary measures prompted many Americans to vote early, and the number of those who cast their votes before polling day reached more than 100 million.

Democrats often tend to vote early more than Republicans, and this disparity appeared most clearly in 2020, as approximately 60% of the votes received by Joe Biden came from this category, compared to about 30% for Donald Trump, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

But things may be different this time, as Republicans indicate that more of their supporters are voting early, according to polls.

However, political commentators and analysts warn against rushing to analyze early voting indicators and calculate them in favor of any of the candidates, in light of a very close electoral race.