More than 1.2 million Americans have already cast their presidential ballots without waiting for the first scheduled debate Tuesday between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in Cleveland, according to a CNN survey of election officials in 20 states that are making return data available.
These votes represent what will ultimately be a small fraction of the votes cast this year. Trump and Hillary Clinton received about 130 million votes combined in 2016. The majority of states are not yet reporting early ballot returns or have not sent ballots out domestically. Yet it also demonstrates an eagerness to vote, in a year when more Americans than ever will cast early ballots because of the pandemic. Around the US, more than 30 million ballot requests have been made — predominantly for mail-in ballots — in the 36 states currently reporting. Another 43 million ballots have been or will soon be mailed to voters in the nine states — along with Washington, DC — that are automatically mailing ballots to eligible voters. The data show a sharp Democratic advantage in early requests. Overall, registered Democrats have requested about 6.
