More than 60 million votes already cast in US election

WASHINGTON: More than 57 million US voters have already cast their ballots in the 2024 election, breaking records in some states and leading both sides to hope it gives them an edge -- even as experts warn the data is difficult to interpret.

Opinion polls show Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump running neck-and-neck, including in the seven battleground states that often decide close US elections. Harris´s campaign has encouraged early voting, with her running mate Tim Walz, President Joe Biden, and former president Barack Obama all having already cast their ballots.

Trump had earlier cast skepticism -- without proof -- over the fairness of early voting, but has since embraced it, encouraging his supporters to cast ballots whenever suits them. As of Thursday, around 62 million people had cast votes early, accounting for almost 40 percent of the total vote count in 2020.

In Georgia, for example, more than 3.5 million people had voted, or 45 percent of registered voters -- a record, according to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He added that he expects up to 70 percent of Georgians to vote early in this election.

The situation is similar in several other swing states, including North Carolina. Brad Hines, a 73-year-old police officer, lined up to cast his ballot in person on the first day of early voting in Wisconsin.

“I wanted to get in and get my vote done and then let everybody else know that they should do the same thing,” he said, adding that it was an “important election” for the state of “democracy.” “There is a strong intensity to how voters feel about the candidates and after 2020, states really strengthened and improved early voting processes,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton university.

The high number of early votes helps campaigns focus their efforts, said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who is closely monitoring early voting. “Every one of these early voters is somebody that they scratch off their lists, and every voter they scratch off their lists, they don´t have to contact that person anymore,” he said on a podcast.

He warned, however, that it was difficult to make projections at this stage. According to figures compiled by his laboratory for six states -- Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia -- women represent around 55 percent of the early vote, compared with 45 percent for men.

The Democratic Party will hope that gives Harris an edge, with opinion polls showing Harris has a marked lead with women. Republicans, however, say that surveys are showing an increasing number of their supporters voting early. At a rally on Wednesday, Republican candidate Trump claimed “Republicans have set the highest record” for early voting.

“Voters are engaged on both sides of the aisle,” Georgia´s Raffensperger said on CNN on Thursday. “What we just want to do is make sure we have a fair, honest, and accurate process, and that´s what we do.”