More people voted in these 4 states before Election Day than in all of 2016, data show

Before polls opened on Election Day, more votes had already been cast in four states than the entire 2016 election, according to data from the U.S. Elections Project.

Texas, Washington, Montana and Hawaii each surpassed their 2016 totals before Election Day, according to the website.

Hawaii had the largest increase in votes before Election Day — up 10.6%. Votes in Texas were up 8.3%, while Washington and Montana saw their totals increase by 5.4% and 2.4%, respectively.

Eight other states — Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina — all reported at least 90% of their 2016 voter turnout before this year’s Election Day.

Nearly 100 million people had voted as of 1 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Elections Project. The coronavirus pandemic has driven a surge in mail-in ballots — accounting for nearly two-thirds of all early votes.

More people voted early in California than any other state. California had just over 12 million votes and Texas had the second most with 9.7 million, Elections Project data show.

In the 19 states reporting party registration data, registered Democrats accounted for 17.6 million of the returned ballots and Republicans accounted for 9.9 million, according to the website. Registered Republicans had a 700,000-vote advantage with early in-person voting in the 10 states that reported their data.

In 2016, nearly 139 million Americans voted. Oddsmakers placed the election voter turnout at over/under 149.5 million, with odds leaning towards the “over,” according to Sports Illustrated.

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 11:30 AM with the headline "More people voted in these 4 states before Election Day than in all of 2016, data show."