More than 5 million Americans have already voted in the 2024 presidential election, according to a tracking tool run by the University of Florida‘s Election Lab. Of those who have cast their ballots early, 4.4 million have returned mail-in ballots and over 941,000 have voted in-person. The tracker reveals that 34 states allow for early voting.
In terms of party affiliation, around 1.3 million Democrats have voted so far, compared to approximately 741,000 Republicans and about 446,000 unaffiliated or third-party voters.
When it comes to gender breakdown among early voters in states that report this data, nearly 55 percent are women and about 44 percent are men. The remaining one percent is classified as “unknown.”
The majority of early voters are over the age of 65 at around 59 percent. Approximately 28 percent fall into the age range of 41 to 65 years old, while nine percent are aged between26 and40 years old. Only a small percentage—3.4 percent—are aged between18 and25 years old.
In terms of racial demographics among early voters who provided this information in reporting states: around72percentare non-Hispanic white;11.6percentare black;1.9percentare Hispanic;2percentare Asian;and11.7percentfall into other categories or their race is unknown.
Early voting has now begun in Georgia—a battleground state—and will continue until November1st—four days before Election Day on November5th.
A recent ruling by a Georgia judge stated that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law without excluding any group of votes from certification—even if there are suspicions of error or fraud.
Georgia was previously considered a “lean Republican” state but has been moved to “toss up” status by prominent election forecaster the Cook Political Report since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race against former President Donald Trump.
Utah—a traditionally Republican-leaning state—has also started its early voting period on Tuesday.
Recent polls show Trump gaining support after initially losing ground when Harris declared her candidacy following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race earlier this year.