Early Voting in US Election Tops 90 Million

More than 90 million Americans voted in the U.S. presidential election on Saturday, according to the U.S. count. Elections Initiative at the University of Florida, setting the stage for the highest turnout in more than a century.

The record-breaking rate, about 65 percent of the overall turnout in 2016, reflects the strong interest in the vote that incumbent Donald Trump, a Republican, is up against Democratic candidate Joe Biden, a former vice president, reports Reuters.

Significant numbers of people voted by mail or at early in-person polling stations due to worries about coronavirus exposure at busy polling stations on election day.

Trump trails Biden in national opinion polls, questioning the Trump administration 's treatment of COVID-19, which killed nearly 229,000 people in the United States, with the number of new infections breaking regular records once again as Election Day closes on Tuesday.

Democrats have a major advantage in early voting due to their adoption of postal ballots, which Republicans have traditionally cast in large numbers but have shunned in the wake of frequent and baseless attacks by Trump, who argues that the system is vulnerable to widespread fraud.

Experts estimate that the turnout would comfortably reach the 138 million who voted in 2016. Four years ago, just 47 million ballots were cast before Election Day.

In 20 states that report party registration data, 19.9 million registered Democrats have already voted, compared with 13 million Republicans and 10.1 million with no party affiliation. The data does not show for whom the votes were cast.