Over 51 million Americans cast early election votes

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - More than 51 million Americans have already voted in the 2020 White House race as Election Day is 11 days away, the US Elections Project's data showed Friday.

Nearly 35.5 million are mail-in ballots, while more than 15.6 million people voted in-person.

Democrats top in early votes with nearly 11.8 million, or 50.3% of the total vote, mostly mail ballots, according to the project.

Republicans represent 27% of the vote, as 4.5 million out of 6.3 million, cast votes by mail. Only 1.75 million have voted in-person.

Those who have no party affiliation constitute 22.1% of early votes.

The surge in early voting has already outpaced the 2016 elections, when about 5.9 million Americans voted by Oct. 23, because of the coronavirus outbreak.

President Donald Trump voiced distrust of mail-in-ballots since the early days of his presidential campaign, claiming it promotes fraud.

But Democrats pushed for expanding vote-by-mail to create a safe way to hold elections amid the pandemic that has infected 8.4 million and killed more than 223,000 in the country.