Democratic voters largely weathered the coronavirus pandemic and the calls for of social distancing on Tuesday, to end up to vote in three main
Democratic voters largely weathered the coronavirus pandemic and the calls for of social distancing on Tuesday, to end up to vote in three main states. They did so with an enormous help from early voting and voting-by-mail.
In 2016, just over 1.7 million ballots were cast within the Florida Democratic presidential main. As of this writing, 2020 turnout in Florida has exceeded its 2016 levels, with NBC News estimating turnout at round 1.eight million — with extra ballots nonetheless to be counted.
In Arizona, about 410,000 votes were cast within the 2016 Democratic main. As of this writing, more than 500,000 ballots have been counted in Arizona’s 2020 main, and extra stay to be counted within the state as nicely.
Illinois, in the meantime, seems to be the exception to this pattern. About 2 million voters cast ballots in that state’s 2016 Democratic president main. And although some ballots stay to be counted, at present only about 1.5 million have been counted so far. The state is unlikely to succeed in the turnout mark it hit in 2016.
As my colleague Emily Stewart famous, Illinois confronted explicit difficulties in its voting course of — significantly in Chicago, the place the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners made a final minute (and rejected) request that the state postpone voting, and the place a shortage of poll workers led to stories of difficulties with poll entry.
And as my colleagues Nicole Narea and Ella Nilsen famous shortly after these three states have been referred to as for former Vice President Joe Biden, in-person turnout did seem to drop on Tuesday — however vote-by-mail and early voting salvaged what might have in any other case been disastrously low-turnout elections. In Florida, for instance, almost 1.1 million voters voted early or by mail, a 20 p.c enhance from 2016.
There isn’t any option to know what the world might appear to be throughout November’s normal election, or whether or not voters would really feel comfy leaving their properties to solid a poll on Election Day. Many public well being specialists predict that People might must take drastic measures to cut back the unfold of coronavirus well past the general election.
If that occurs, strong entry to voting-by-mail will probably be an important means to make sure that each eligible American can take part within the 2020 election. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), in the meantime, have proposed laws that will expand both in-person early voting and voting by mail.