This did not happen in 2016

This did not happen in 2016

In recent days, early voting has started in large states, and the turnout has been huge.

After the opening of early voting locations in Florida, Texas and other countries, millions of new votes were received with those sent by mail, while voters, due to the coronavirus pandemic, try to avoid crowded polling stations on election day - November 3.

That means that a total of 58.6 million citizens have voted so far, while according to the records of the Associated Press in 2016, a total of 58 million Americans voted early, by mail or live at early voting locations, Voice of America writes.

Democrats continue to dominate early voting, but Republicans are narrowing that gap. Republican voters have begun appearing at early polls, a sign that many have heeded President Donald Trump's warnings about possible vote-rigging - warnings that the president has not substantiated. On October 15, registered Democrats made up 51% of early voters, compared to 25% of Republicans. On Sunday, the Democrats had a slightly weaker lead - 51 to 31 percent.

Early voting data reported by state and local election officials and monitored by the AP are not a perfect indicator of which party is in the lead. They only show in which party the voters are registered and not which candidate they really supported.

A majority of Republican voters are expected to come to vote on election day.

Analysts say that, due to the significant turnout of Democrats, the Republican Party is still under pressure to encourage its voters to go to the polls in the last week and on the day of the elections on November 3. This is especially clear in states with a tight race such as Florida, Nevada and North Carolina.

In Florida, for example, Democrats voted by mail more than Republicans with a difference of 596.000 votes, while Republicans have an advantage of 230.000 votes among those who showed up at early voting locations. In Nevada, where Democrats typically dominate early live voting, the state decided in this election to send each voter a ballot earlier in the mail, and now Republicans have a 42.600-vote advantage in physical locations, while Democrats have a 97.500-vote majority. .

"At some point, Republicans have to vote," said Michael MacDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who monitors early voting on ElectProject.org. "You can't force people to go to the polls on election day. Do you expect all those Republicans to stand in line for eight hours?" Election headquarters usually encourage their voters to vote early, in order to allocate the remaining resources to win over some more undecided voters.

Trump's headquarters encouraged voters to vote early, but with limited success, which makes Democrats happy. "We see Trump's election headquarters, the Republican National Committee and state officials in the states urging Trump supporters to vote by mail, while the president says on Twitter that such voting leads to fraud," Democratic data analyst Tom Bonier said in a recent interview with reporters. "A Twitter account wins every time."

However, he warns that he does not expect unilateral elections. "There are signs that Republicans are very engaged and interested. We expect them to go to the polls in extremely large numbers on November 3."

Because of this difference in voter behavior - where Democrats vote early and Republicans vote on election day - some Democrats worry that Trump will declare victory because early votes are the last to be counted in industrialized states in the north and mid-west. However, they are fast counting in key states such as Arizona, Florida and North Carolina, which could even out the picture of which party has the lead during election night.

Due to the record turnout, there were long lines at some early voting locations and there are occasional examples of voters receiving ballots in the mail with the wrong format. However, on the whole, the voting went relatively smoothly. While a third of the approximately 150 million voters expected to go to the polls had already voted, there were no confrontations between armed people at the polls or mass apathy or suppression of voting rights, which election experts feared for months.

One sign of enthusiasm is the large number of new voters as well as Americans who do not go to the polls and who have already voted. They make up 25% of the total number of votes, according to the AP's analysis of data from the political firm L2. Those voters are younger than the average voters and are less often in question - whites. They are registered in both parties, in a fairly equal relationship.

Due to the strong share of this type of voters in early voting, analysts predict that more than 150 million Americans will vote in total, which could be the largest turnout in some US presidential elections since 1908.