MONITORING (SW) – In-person voting for this year’s presidential election in US began, a milestone that kicked off a six-week sprint to Election Day after a summer of political turmoil.
Voters lined up to cast their ballots in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, the states with the first early in-person voting opportunities. About a dozen more states will follow by mid-October, reported AP.
The beginning of in-person balloting follows a tumultuous summer in American politics that included President Joe Biden dropping out of the race and being replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, and an assassination attempt against Republican nominee Donald Trump followed by another apparent attempt on his life just nine weeks later.
Some 69% of votes cast during the 2020 election were done through early in-person voting or through mail-in ballots, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s election data science lab found.
Some in a queue in Fairfax, Virginia, told the BBC they felt it was their civic duty to vote early.
Virginia has been a reliably Democratic state in the last few elections, but some Republicans have been bullish about trying to flip it in November. Voters there will also be casting votes for the state’s eleven members of congress and one of its two senators.
Early and mail-in voting has been a hot-button issue since the 2020 election, with just 37% of Republicans saying people should have the option to vote early, according to polling from the Pew Research Center. That sharply contrasts with 82% support from Democrats.
The latest polling suggests the presidential race is extremely tight, with Harris holding a slight national lead.
In the months leading up to President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, polls consistently indicated he was trailing Trump. But the race tightened when Harris became the Democratic candidate.
Along with the presidential race, millions of voters in 41 states will also have the chance to voice their opinion on a specific policy position by voting on ballot initiatives on 5 November.
Ten states are asking voters to decide whether they want to enshrine abortion access in their states’ constitutions, voters in West Virginia will be asked vote on whether or not medically assisted suicide should be prohibited, and voters in three states will be asked whether recreational marijuana usage for adults should be legal.
There are more than 140 measures on the ballot across the US, according to a count from the Associated Press.
