Two days before the close of the elections, Americans turned out en masse to vote in person or by mail at the voting centers distributed throughout the country. According to a survey of University of Florida Elections Laboratory, led by expert Michael McDonald, a total of 77,368,692 of Americans and naturalized people have already spoken through the vote.
The figure, collected daily by the institution, is broken down as follows: 42,195,018 They went in person to the authorized voting centers, including Harris and Biden, while 35,173,674 They did it by mail, sending the ticket elected to the corresponding jurisdiction. Nails 67,308,031 They requested the ballot to be able to vote in advance.
Record early voting in the United States elections
The number of people who voted early far exceeds the figures recorded in past elections, with the exception of the pandemic, when for health reasons 101 million people voted by mail or in person but prior to “D” day.
In the 2020 presidential elections, while the COVID-19 pandemic Covid-19 hit the world and the vaccines had not yet been distributed, there were a total of 101,453,111 Americans who voted early. Nails 35,811,062 they did it in person and 65,642,049 through absentee ballot.
Except for the pandemic, the highest record of early voting had occurred in 2016 when some 47,242,753 (38.8%) of voters did so in advance. It is about twenty million voters less than today.
United States elections: what data to look at to analyze early vote participation
“The most important fact to know about early voting is that Election Day Voters Are Markedly Different From Early Voters. In general, early voting is a blue wave and election day is a red wave“explains mcdonald, in reference to the primacy democrat in the advance count on the republicans.
In any case, clarify that if the democrats they lead the early voting, As often happens, that “no guarantee that Republican Election Day voters won’t flood early voting“. However, “If Democrats are losing early voting, as they did in the 2022 Florida midterms, that is almost certainly a sign that Republicans will win.”
The University of Florida professor gives other guidelines to take into account when analyzing electoral participation. On the one hand, the states where voting is done by mail “are the best for observing and predicting participation and winners.” California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington, plus the D.C.are those who make their elections mainly by mail.
In turn, he explains that the moment is important. “Mail voting typically occurs before in-person early voting, and partisans tend to use these two voting methods at different rates. Don’t read too much into the statistics until a generous number of in-person early votes have been cast. We’ll have our best look at the election from early voting a week before Election Day“he says.
Source: Ambito
