More Have Already Voted Early Than in 2016

More Americans have voted early already than did before the 2016 election.

With eight days until the election, 59.4 million people have cast ballots in-person at early voting centers or by mail, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

That’s more than the roughly 58 million who voted before Election Day in the last election.

It’s not yet clear whether the surge in early voting will reflect higher turnout overall or whether most early voters would have cast ballots on Election Day regardless.

The pool of early voters skews heavily Democrat, however, with 49% of returned ballots in states that identify party ID coming from Democrats, 28% from Republicans and 22% from independents, according to the Elections Project.