Early Voting Is Already Shattering Past Election Records

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

The American public is showing a heightened interest in early voting practices ahead of the November election.

Over 28 million Americans have already requested ballots and an additional 43 million are automatically scheduled to be mailed to registered voters, according to a survey of election offices conducted by CNN. The states surveyed include a total of 42 states in addition to Washington D.C.

The number of pre-Election Day ballots sent out this year have already surpassed the 50 million ballots sent out for the 2016 election which signals that there will likely be a collectively high voter turnout. For this election, mail-in voting has become more of a preference due to the ongoing pandemic.

It has also been reported that Democratic voters are outpacing Republican voters' mail-in ballot requests by more than 1.3 million.

Other reports have also suggested that the majority of the ballots already cast have been favorable for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

According to the Elect Project, more than 864,000 ballots have already been cast in multiple states across the United States and their statistics have indicated that the majority of those votes have gone to Biden.

This signals a sharp uptick in comparison to the 2016 election where only 9,000 voters had cast their ballots by the same time that year.

However, CNN poll results also indicate that President Donald Trump's supporters will likely close the voting gap on Election Day.

According to the CNN poll, 57 percent of Trump supporters in North Carolina and 83 percent of those in Wisconsin plan to vote for the president on Election Day.

This week, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose released a statement confirming approximately 1,784,000 absentee ballot applications had been received by the state's local boards of elections.

LaRose also noted that the pandemic is not the only reason why Ohioans are interested in absentee voting as he reiterated that the practice has been popular among the state's voters for nearly 20 years.

"One of the big reasons why Ohio is considered the national leader in absentee voting is because we've been doing it this way for nearly two decades," LaRose said in a statement. "You get good at something when you practice, and Ohio has proven to be game-ready."

Voting has already begun in several states across the United States. Election Day is set for Nov. 3.