Advance or postal voting for the November 3 election in the United States is already larger than it was four years earlier in 2016, according to an independent study released on Sunday.
Nine days before the poll, the US Election Project, a study center under the University of Florida, announced that as of Sunday, October 25, more than 59 million voters had already voted.
In 2016, 57 million voters voted in advance, either in advance in person or by mail, according to the website of the US Election Assistance Commission.
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Concerned by the persistence of the coronavirus pandemic or motivated by the stakes of the electoral clash between Republican President Donald Trump and former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, Americans voted in advance by the millions. So far, the Democrats, who have been pushing forward voting a lot this year, lead in the number of votes cast so far, but it is unclear whether this can be any indication of the nature of the end result. For their part, Donald Trump and the Republicans have said postal voting opens up possibilities for fraud, and many Republican voters are expected to vote on election day, Nov. 3.