80 Million Votes Cast In Early Voting, Mail-In Voting Before Election Day — Over 50% Of 2020 Election Total

Election Day is here and a close race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could bring high turnout rates nationally to decide the winner of the 2024 presidential election.

A rise in mail-in voting and in-person early voting options across the country has led to over 50% of the 2020 presidential election voting total already being reached before Tuesday.

What Happened: Tens of millions of American voters will head to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballot for president and several other key races in the 2024 election, which could be one of the closest presidential matchups in years, according to polls.

Before Election Day, over 80 million votes have been cast thanks to early in-person voting and mail-in ballots, as reported by The Washington Post.

This is equal to over half of the total 158.4 million total votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.

The 2020 presidential election saw 66.8% of eligible voters cast a ballot, according to a Census report. This marked the highest voter turnout of the 21^st century. Women led the way with 68.4% of eligible voters casting a vote, while 65% of eligible men voted.

Voter turnout rose with age, with the lowest percentage of eligible voters casting a ballot coming from the 18-24 demographic (51.4%) and the highest percentage of eligible voters coming from the 65-74 demographic (76%).

Several states automatically mail out ballots to eligible voters, which may increase the mail-in voter numbers over the last several elections as more states have passed laws for early voting.

Forty-seven states offer early in-person voting, with Alabama, New Hampshire and Mississippi being the exceptions.

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Why It's Important: The 80 million early figure is high and will be interesting to watch to see if the 2024 total voter turnout percent and totals pass the figures from the 2020 election. Some registered voters said they did not vote in the 2020 election due to concerns from COVID-19, which may have lowered the already strong turnout totals.

With a close race expected, many political experts expect it to take longer to declare a winner than in the past.

Early voting and higher mail-in voter figures could expedite the process and potentially help declare a winner in a timely manner.

Some states that are often swept by the Republican or Democratic party could be called Tuesday night. The key states will be the seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Together, these seven swing states total 93 electoral college votes and will likely decide the winner between Trump and Harris.

President Joe Biden won six of the seven swing states and Trump won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election. Biden was able to flip several of the seven that were won by Trump in the 2016 election to take the White House in the 2020 race.

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Photo generated using artificial intelligence via MidJourney.