Avalanche of early votes transforming 2020 election

More than 17 million Americans have already cast ballots in the 2020 election, a record-shattering avalanche of early votes driven both by Democratic enthusiasm and a pandemic that has transformed the way the nation votes.

The total represents 12% of the all votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, even as eight states are not yet reporting their totals and voters still have more than two weeks to cast ballots.

Americans’ rush to vote is leading election experts to predict that a record 150 million votes may be cast and turnout rates could be higher than in any presidential election since 1908.

Polling, and now early voting, suggest the rhetoric has turn his party’s rank-and-file away from a method of voting that, traditionally, they dominated in the weeks before Election Day.

That’s why, despite Trump’s rhetoric, his campaign and party are encouraging their own voters to cast ballots by mail or early and in-person.

In Pennsylvania, more than three-quarters of the more than 437,000 ballots sent through the mail so far have been from Democrats.

In Florida, half of all ballots sent through the mail so far have been from Democrats and less than a third of them from Republicans.

But there’s little evidence of mass disruption that some feared as election offices had to abruptly shift to deal with an influx of early voting.

But an AP analysis of the early vote shows 8% of early voters had never cast a ballot before, and 13.8% had voted in half or fewer of previous elections for which they were eligible.

Of the early voters, 82% cast ballots through the mail and 18% in person.

Traditionally, younger and minority voters send their mail ballots in closer to Election Day or vote in person.