Long lines of voters were reported in Ohio and Indiana Tuesday as early voting began in those states. So far, more than 4.5 million ballots have already been cast in the 2020 Presidential Election, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
Mail-in, absentee or early in-person voting is already underway in 39 states, according to the Associated Press, with more to follow.
In Ohio on Tuesday, hundreds waited outside board offices in Hamilton, Franklin and Cuyahoga counties, which serve voters from the three biggest cities of Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, respectively. Similar lines were reported across Ohio, and they remained long hours after voting started.
The U.S. Elections Project has return data for 23 states who are already collecting early votes or mail-in ballots, and shows 4,526,562 ballots have been collected in those states so far. The project is run by a professor at the Universityof Florida who has tracked voter turnout since 2000.
A handful of states report party registration data of the ballots requested and returned. Those seven states account for nearly 1.6 million returned ballots so far. Of those, just over 50 percent of returned ballots are from voters who had registered with the state Democratic party.
“I strongly caution that Democrats’ unprecedented high levels of early voting should not be taken as an indicator of the final election results,” Professor Michael McDonald warns.
There have been many reports that Democrats tend to be more likely to vote early or by mail.