One-third of American voters have already voted early.
Báo Tuổi Trẻ•01/11/2024
More than 60 million Americans have cast early ballots in dozens of states across the country, while the number of people requesting remote voting is equally high.
Voters cast early ballots in Detroit, Michigan on October 31 - Photo: AFP
According to the New York Times , the trend of early voting or remote voting in the 2020 election will continue in the 2024 election. As of November 1 (Vietnam time), the number of voters who participated in early voting across the United States reached 60.6 million voters, accounting for about 30% of the total number of registered voters nationwide. Voters vote early in two ways: directly at early voting locations or absentee voting (by mail ). With absentee voting, the number of voters registered to vote in this way has reached 68.1 million people, accounting for about 34% of voters. The above figures show that the trend of American voters favoring early voting and remote voting is growing. This trend originated in the 2020 election, when concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic urged voters to vote at home.
Early voting is especially popular in battleground states this election cycle. Four battleground states have seen nearly half of their voters cast ballots, including North Carolina (54%), Georgia (49%), Nevada (45%), and Arizona (43%). Battleground states Wisconsin and Michigan also have higher early voting rates than the national average, at 35% and 33%, respectively. Pennsylvania alone has seen a low turnout of voters, at just 20%.
A large number of voters cast early ballots in Michigan on October 31 - Photo: AFP
The moves to relax early voting regulations in the 2020 election directly increased voter turnout nationwide, thereby helping incumbent President Joe Biden win the election. Up to 60% of voters who voted for Mr. Biden at that time participated in the early election. This made former President Donald Trump unhappy and claimed that a large number of Mr. Biden's postal votes were fake. However, in this election, the Republican Party still tried to encourage voters to vote early to increase their vote count. This is especially meaningful when many eligible voters in the US cannot vote in person on the official election day, because this is always a working day (fixed on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in the election year). In Pennsylvania alone, the Republican Party spent up to 10 million USD on an advertising campaign calling on voters to vote by mail if they cannot vote in person. But so far, the number of remote voting requests from registered Democrats still far outpaces those from Republicans.
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