Early voting leaves long lines in Texas and Georgia 4:06
(CNN) -
The facts are overwhelming.
More than 28 million Americans have already cast an early vote for president.
This while an electoral system modified for the pandemic is with an electorate that does not want to wait until November 3 to be heard.
But what does it mean?
This is the most basic summary of what we know, what we think we know, and what we know we don't know:
We know that a lot of people are voting early.
We believe we know that more Democrats than Republicans are voting early in states that reported party breakdowns.
We don't know if there is a major increase in voting taking place or if these are all people who would have voted on Election Day anyway in a non-covid environment.
We don't know if the apparent head start of the Democrats will be offset by a wave of Republican voters on Election Day.
We don't know how long it will take us to count all the votes as a result of all this early voting.
Record early voting in the US: at least 20 million people have voted, despite long lines
Unusual vote-by-mail could lead to errors 0:37
Tons of people are voting early
The total number of votes cast so far represents nearly 20% of the more than 136 million votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, according to CNN's Political Unit.
Some of the voter information comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics, and other services to Democrats, academics, and nonprofits, advocating for issues of concern and offering new perspectives on who votes before November.
But while the staggering totals make it clear that Americans are voting earlier, it's much more difficult to make predictions about what that will mean in terms of who will win.
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In 2016, the total number of early or absentee votes was 46.1 million in 38 states for which there is data, according to Catalist.
In 2020, weeks before Election Day and before early voting in person has begun in many key states, we are over half of the total pre-election votes.
The wave of early participation is reflected in the battlefield states.
In those that CNN classifies as
tossup in
addition to those leaning towards a party, 16 million in total voted on six battlefields in 2016. It is just shy of 8 million as of Monday morning, when early voting in person was first opened in some parts of Florida.
And the video showed massive lines of voters waiting in socially distanced lines around the first polling places.
In 2016 in Florida, 6.5 million ballots were cast in total.
Even before early voting in person began, 2.5 million ballots had been mailed, or a third of the combined total leading up to the 2016 election.
Democrats have requested more ballots in key places
Data firms may determine the party affiliation of absentee ballots requested in certain states, and Democrats hope the data suggests tremendous support for Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
For example, North Carolina, the state considered a key battleground in 2020 but became a Republican in 2012 and 2016.
In 2016, around this time, the first votes in North Carolina were: 40% for Democrats, 32% for Republicans, and 27% for people who did not identify with a party.
In 2020, there is a stark contrast that so far favors Democrats: 46% of the absentee votes cast have been by Democrats, 28% by someone who does not identify with a party, and only 25% by Republicans.
Similarly, in Florida, 49% of the votes cast before the election are for Democrats, up from 41% in 2016, when Trump won the state.
There is a corresponding drop in ballots cast by Republicans.
The Democratic advantage in absentee ballot requests spans across CNN rates from states as battlegrounds, and for which Catalist has data: 42% of the requests come from Democrats and 31% from Republicans and 24% of people who do not identify with a party.
In 2016, applications were more evenly split across those key states: 39% were Democrats, 37% Republicans, and 21% did not identify with any party.
Many Republicans may be intentionally waiting for Election Day
How does voting by mail work in the US?
1:24
The obvious asterisk to put here is that President Donald Trump has waged a rhetorical war on voting by mail this year.
Polls suggest Republicans are less likely than Democrats to vote by mail, so the Democratic lead in swing requests from undecided states is interesting, but it doesn't predict anything.
"The problem is, we really don't know to what extent the early voting will be more skewed toward the Democrats than the overall count," CNN's Harry Enten wrote over the weekend.
In Georgia, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since Bill Clinton in 1992, is a new battlefield in 2020 and turnout in pre-election votes has risen 152%, according to the secretary of state, and absentee voting by mail has increased by 648% compared to 2016 levels.
The state where the most early votes have already been cast is Texas, with more than 4 million.
Early voting was extended by nearly a week in 2020 to help election officials deal with the pandemic.
In a normal year, early voting would not have started yet.
The Texas Tribune has been paying close attention to the data there, noting that Harris County, which includes Houston and will be a key stronghold for Democrats, has shown remarkable growth in early voting between 2016 and 2020.
But, according to the Tribune, the tally that has seen the biggest increase between 2016 and 2020 is Denton County, which is largely rural and most likely to support Trump.
Biden's campaign manager urged not to be complacent in a series of tweets, arguing that the race is very close.
"The reality is that this race is much closer than some of the experts we are seeing on Twitter and television would suggest," Biden's campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon wrote in a memo to fans. .
"In the key states on the battlefield where this election will be decided, we stand side by side with Donald Trump."
Vote counting could take time in some key states
The other unknown result of the massive shift to early voting during the pandemic is the effect it will have on determining the winner in certain states on election night.
Perhaps sensing an openness here, Trump has tried to argue that whoever appears to be the winner on election night should be the winner, although that runs counter to the democratic idea that votes should be counted, state laws that give weeks or more for voting, counting, and US law that establishes a specific post-election calendar.
While the large number of early in-person voting should make it easier to determine the winner in some states, different rules about when votes can be received by mail - about half of the states will accept votes postmarked Nov.3 for days or Even weeks after Election Day, it could drag out the process in those states.
The 2016 elections
And there has been a growing "blue shift" in the US elections.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton's popular voting margin grew in the days after Election Day as votes increased.
In 2018, Arizona Republican Martha McSally appeared on election night for having more votes than Democrat Kyrsten Sinema for the Senate seat, but Sinema won when all the ballots were counted.
The time it takes to count these votes by mail may vary from state to state.
Key states like Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia can begin processing absentee votes before they are received or a certain number of days before November 3.
That means they can be counted faster on Election Day.
But other key states are at a major logistical disadvantage because they cannot even start the process of organizing and verifying absentee ballots, sent by mail, until Election Day or even when the polls close on Election Day. .
Pennsylvania and Michigan can't do it until Election Day.
Wisconsin cannot do so before the polls close on Election Day.
The Trump campaign maintains that it is right where it should be in early voting.
“We feel better about our path to victory right now than at any point in the campaign this year.
And this optimism is based on numbers and data, not feelings, not sense, "Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on a conference call Monday.
The message is clear in both campaigns: early voting is not the final vote.
Early voting