Thanks in part to coronavirus, early voting is on the rise in the United States, with voters casting their ballots by post or heading to the polls before 3 November.
Last updated: 3 November 2020
In 2020, American citizens prepared for the presidential elections by getting ahead of the game. According to data published by the Us elections project website, before the 3 November deadline almost 100 million voters had already cast their preference in a race for the White House already considered historic.
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Four years ago, in 2016, at the same point in the electoral campaign only 1.4 million people had already voted: an unprecedented gap, largely attributable to the exceptional circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the United States, in fact, infections and deaths show no sign of slowing, pushing millions of people to turn to early voting by post or at polling stations to ensure their preference is counted as soon as possible.
To avoid crowding at polling stations and guarantee the right to vote even for the most vulnerable, many states have relaxed their rules to encourage postal voting. Out of a total of around 210 million voters, this year more than 80 million requested the option to vote by post, according to the New York Times, compared with 33 million in 2016. Some states have recorded increases beyond all expectations: +2,526 per cent in Pennsylvania, but also +729 per cent in Virginia and +748 per cent in Wisconsin.
President Donald Trump has criticised this method on numerous occasions, claiming that it will undoubtedly lead to "massive electoral fraud" and that it will, in effect, corrupt the 2020 elections. The allegations have been refuted on multiple occasions and are not supported by the facts; on the contrary: according to the Brennan center for justice at New York university, an American is more likely to "be struck by lightning than to commit fraud through postal voting". Last August, Trump himself and First Lady Melania requested to vote by post in Florida, where they reside.
Citizens are generally permitted to cast their vote by going to polling stations before Election Day, which this year falls on 3 November. The first to open the polls was Alabama on 9 September; by 29 October all other states too will have made arrangements to guarantee in-person voting.
The possibility of voting early is nothing new in the United States, but this year turnout at polling stations is already breaking records. On 13 October, the first day polling stations opened in Texas, thousands of people rushed to vote, creating long queues and waiting times of several hours. The day before, broadcaster Cnn reported that in some areas of Georgia citizens had waited eleven hours before being able to vote.
The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly altered the electoral dynamics of 2020, forcing candidates to scale back traditional activities and revise their schedules to comply with the new guidelines put in place to prevent the spread of infection.
While Donald Trump — who contracted the virus in early October in a White House that had become a hotspot — nonetheless insisted on holding rallies and attending events with large audiences, Joe Biden long preferred to attend virtual meetings from his home in Delaware.
According to projections by the Financial Times, if the election were to end today Biden could count on a solid majority, with 207 electoral votes (the delegates who formally represent electoral results in each state) against Trump's 83. To be elected, one of the two candidates will need to secure at least 270 electoral votes.
