(Photo : Getty Images/Brett Carlsen)
NASHVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 14: Voters cast their ballots during early voting at a Nashville Public Library building on October 14, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. Early voting in Tennessee started on Wednesday and will continue through October 29th before the general election on November 3rd.

During the early voting weeks before Election Day, 14 million people have already voted. The figure includes absentee and in-person early voting.

This represents an estimated 10 percent of the total 2016 turnout, reported MSN.

Early Voting: Over 14 Million Americans Have Cast Ballots

A surge of Americans cast ballots at a record-setting pace. They inundated early-voting polling places before the November 3 presidential election showdown between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Joe Biden.

Social media videos displayed long lines of voters snaking out of doors and down the sidewalks at polling places. To claim a spot, some people even showed up long before the doors opened.

Turnout has reached an estimated 25 percent of the last presidential election's levels in South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Georgia witnessed over a 40 percent increase in voter turnout from 2016 as 128,590 votes were cast on Monday, the first day of early voting.

Three Driving Factors

"There are three driving factors here. One is simply, that states have relaxed their laws. Maybe it was through changes that were already in place or as an emergency for the pandemic. And in the latter case, we've seen many people requesting mail ballots and voting in-person early in order to socially distance," according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who runs the Elections Project, reported China.

He further added, "The other big factor, though, that's going on here is that there are lots of people who really are enthused to vote, and they're casting their ballots early."

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Voters nationwide as of Wednesday have cast a tally of 13,015,675 ballots either by mail or in-person voting. Six million votes were made by mail.

Key swing states, including Florida, have had over two million voters casting their ballots.

"The numbers are pretty staggering for us and the return rates and the polling look good," according to Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida, reported The Guardian.

In numerous individual states, a larger proportion has cast votes. In Vermont, 95,885 people have voted, which is almost 30 percent of the state's voters in 2016.

Texas and Kentucky also had a massive turnout. Harris County, Texas, had an estimated 68,000 votes for the first day of early voting.

In many states such as Oregon, Kansas, Virginia, and West Virginia, Tuesday was also the deadline for same-day voter registration. According to state officials, in Virginia, the voter registration system accidentally crashed for many hours after a cable was cut.

In the Monday early voting in Georgia, citizens waited five hours or more to vote in record-breaking early turnout for a state that also features two aggressive US Senate races. Many people posted on social media to share their early voting experiences. They noted lines of voters spanning several city blocks.n

According to voting rights groups, glitches with Georgia's new voting machines prolonged the delays in particular locations. This is parallel to issues that led to long lines in Georgia's June primary.