US election: Early voting out strips 2016 poll

Early voting in the 2020 US election has surpassed all the pre-election ballots from four years earlier.

Early voters queue at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Picture: AFP

Early voting in the 2020 US election has surpassed all the pre-election ballots from four years earlier, with nine days still to go before the November 3 poll.

Millions of Americans wary of crowded polling booths during the coronavirus pandemic and energised by an election fight that President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden have framed as existential are smashing records for casting ballots, whether by mail or in person.

The tally by the independent US Election Project, run by the University of Florida, said that as of Sunday (Monday AEDT) more than 59 million people had voted so far.

That compares with the 57 million who voted early or by mail in 2016, according to the US Election Assistance Commission website.

So far, Democrats — who have encouraged early voting — have been leading the way, but whether that means Mr Biden can breathe easy remains to be seen.

Mr Trump for months has been claiming, without evidence, that mail-in ballots lead to fraud, and many Republicans are expected to vote on election day.

The Election Project has predicted that turnout this year could top 150 million in total. Some 137 million ballots were cast in the 2016 election.

AFP