More than 100 million early votes have been cast in the 2020 presidential election, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
As of Tuesday, Nov. 3, there have been 100,978,567 early votes reported. Of that total, the majority of the votes – 65,055,514 – were cast by mail ballots, while the remaining 35,923,053 were cast in person. The U.S. Elections Projects noted that there are more than 27 million mail ballots outstanding, which would bring the total to 127,997,506 if all are counted.
In Arkansas, there have been a reported 912,688 early voters as of Election Day. This figure is 0.90 percent of the total early vote total in the United States.
By party registration, more Democrats have voted to date, based on the U.S. Elections Project data. The data shows that 44.9 percent of early votes, or 22,117,479 votes, have been cast by Democrats, while 30.5 percent, or 15,063,803 votes, have been cast by Republicans. There have been 11,796,904 votes, or 23.9 percent, cast by voters with no party affiliation, and there have been 332,741 votes, or 0.7 percent, cast by voters affiliated with minor parties.
The party registration vote data, though, is only provided for states that have party registration. As a result, this data set only counts 49 million votes, or roughly 48.8 percent of the total early vote.
In 2016, approximately 138 million Americans, or 58.1 percent of the eligible voting population, cast a vote in the election. The early vote numbers account for 73.3 percent of the total votes cast in the 2016 election.
There are an estimated 239 million individuals in the United States who are part of the “Voting Eligible Population.” The Voting Eligible Population (VEP) is defined as the estimate of the individuals who are eligible to vote, regardless of voter registration status. The U.S. Elections Project estimated that this population numbers 239,247,182. Meanwhile, the U.S. Voting Age Population is 257,605,088, but this number is reduced by factors such as felony prohibitions on voting and more.
The Arkansas Voting Eligible Population numbers 2,182,375, according to the report. Based on the estimated VEP, 41.8 percent of Arkansas’ voting eligible individuals have cast an early vote.
The U.S. Elections Project is an initiative overseen by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor. The purpose of the initiative is to “provide timely and accurate election statistics, electoral laws, research reports, and other useful information regarding the United States electoral system, according to its website.
Voting is still ongoing as of the writing of this article. Polls in Arkansas close at 7:30 p.m. CST.
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