Who has voted so far? More than 7 million Americans have already turned in ballots

Millions of people have already voted in the presidential election between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden as absentee voting surges across several states.

More than 7.4 million Americans have voted in 27 states in the presidential election, according to the U.S. Elections Project, which is tracking early voting data. Registered Democrats have submitted 1.6 million ballots and registered Republicans have turned in 714,085, according to the data.

Voting so far has greatly exceeded the rate from the 2016 presidential election. That year, only around 75,000 people had voted early a month from the election, according to the U.S. Election Project.

In total, President Donald Trump and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton received around 130 million votes combined in 2016.

According to the project’s data, more than 1.3 million people have already cast their ballots in the crucial swing state of Florida, which leads the nation in early voting so far. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have also already voted in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Minnesota.

But the partisan gap in ballots at this point doesn’t necessarily indicate a Democratic victory come November. Early voting doesn’t predict the outcome of the election, because polling indicates Republicans prefer voting in person on Election Day, CNN reported.

The surge in early voting comes as states have changed their laws in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic to expand or offer early voting in a hotly-contested election, according to the publication.

“Yes, some of it’s supply, but most of it’s demand,” Michael McDonald, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who manages the U.S. Election Project said, according to USA Today.

Early votes this year comprise more than one-fifth of the total votes from the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Virginia, according to McDonald’s data. Women, African Americans and college-educated white voters make up more of the voters so far this year than they did in 2016, USA Today reported.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden has a 84 in 100 chance of winning the election, Democrats have a 68 in 100 chance of taking control of the Senate, and Democrats have 94 in 100 chance of keeping control of the House, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecasts.

Trump has previously said, without evidence, that mail-in voting would make the election “rigged” and “fraudulent,” while saying voting by mail is secure in Florida — a crucial swing state — because “we defeated Democrats’ attempts at change.” He also said the state has “a great Republican governor” while explaining his support for mail-in voting in Florida.

Studies have found that mail-in voting does not benefit one party more than the other, FiveThirtyEight reported.

An Axios/Ipsos poll found Democrats — who are more likely to vote by mail this election — are also increasingly concerned about in-person voting as a risk for getting COVID-19. Fifty-two percent of respondents said in-person voting was risky. Sixty-four percent of Democrats said it was risky compared to 29% of Republicans who said the same.

McDonald said this could have an unintended consequence: “Ironically, all the Democrats voting by mail will help make Republicans’ voting experience better with shorter lines.”

There are also concerns about absentee ballots being rejected.

More than 550,000 ballots were rejected in this year’s primaries, according to an NPR analysis. During the 2016 general election, 318,728 ballots were rejected. Experts say first-time absentee voters are more likely to make mistakes that result in rejected ballots and young voters and voters of color are more likely to have their ballots rejected.

Mail-in ballots tend to get rejected due to the ballot arriving too late or if a signature is missing or doesn’t match, according to the publication.

“If something goes wrong with any of this, that’s a problem writ large, but it’s also going to be one that hits some populations of the United States a bit harder than others, potentially disenfranchises different groups of folks at higher rates,” said Rob Griffin of the Democracy Fund, according to NPR.

This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 10:30 AM with the headline "Who has voted so far? More than 7 million Americans have already turned in ballots."