More than 66m Americans have already cast their ballots in the US presidential election amid a surge in early voting due to the pandemic, pointing to massive turnout despite fears that Covid-19 would dampen participation.
According to data from the US Elections Project, 66.4m Americans had voted as of Tuesday morning, either by returning their mail-in ballots or attending an early polling station in person. That represents an increase of 8m more early votes than were cast in all of 2016.
With a week to go until election day, the number of early votes in some states is even on track to surpass the entire number of ballots cast four years ago.