Early voter turnout blasts past 2016

More than 9 million Texans have already cast their votes in the 2020 presidential election as of Friday afternoon. That’s more than half of the state’s registered voters. In 2016, 8.9 million people voted in the state, behind only California and Florida. The staggering volume of mail-in and early in-person voting reflects a similar trend across the United States.

How is early voting going in other states? The overall number of early ballots nationwide reached 85.7 million by 4 p.m. Friday, the U.S. Elections Project reported. About 64 percent of those ballots were mailed in. The number of Americans voting early has already reached more than three-fifths of the total turnout from 2016.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Stew on the threat of foreign interference in the 2020 election.