More than 46 million early voters have already voted as Harris and Trump enter the final race – Telemundo Philadelphia (41)

• More than 46 million Americans had already cast their ballots in the 2024 election as of Tuesday morning, according to NBC News’ tracker, representing about a quarter of the electorate.
• Some states, such as North Carolina and Georgia, have reported that their early voter turnout is setting records this election cycle.
• While early voting data can provide useful signals of potential patterns and help gauge voter enthusiasm, it is not a predictive model of Election Day results.

More than 46 million Americans have issued their ballots in it 2024 elections starting Tuesday morning, according to NBC News‘ tracker, which represents more than a quarter of the predicted electorate.

Both nominees, vice president Kamala Harris and former president donald trumpThey have encouraged voters to go to the polls as soon as possible.

With the Nov. 5 election a week away, early voting is underway in all seven battleground states, along with dozens of others. Reports of hours-long lines outside polling places have already emerged on social media, as voters flood the limited number of municipal spaces set up to accommodate early voting.

While millions of Americans have lined up to cast their ballots in person, another 20 million have sent their votes by mail. The 46.5 million early votes are split almost evenly between votes cast in person and by mail, according to the University of Florida Election Laboratory.

Some states, such as the major presidential battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgiahave reported that their early voter turnout is setting records this election cycle.

In North Carolina, 353,166 ballots were accepted on the first day of early voting on Oct. 17, surpassing the record for the first day in 2020, according to preliminary data from the State Board of Elections. As of Tuesday, more than 2.7 million votes had been cast statewide, according to NBC News.

Georgia also broke its first-day early voting record with approximately 310,000 votes cast on October 15. As of Tuesday, just under 3 million votes had been received.

These historic voter numbers are testing the limits of America’s early voting infrastructure, which operates with only a fraction of the workers and polling places that will be open on Election Day.

Early voting aims to provide Americans with more convenient alternatives to casting their ballot on Election Day. In some states, early voting also allows election officials to have a head start in processing or counting votes, to help spread the workload of counting votes over several days.

Elections and election laws are enacted by individual states, not the federal government. This creates a patchwork of election operations across the country, each governed by its own rules.

Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, for example, can begin counting their votes before November 5. But in Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, counting may not begin until Election Day.

Early votes accounted for about two-thirds of the votes cast in the 2020 election, according to the Associated Press.

This huge total, more than 100 million votes, was largely driven by the unique impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on American civic life.

And while early voting data can provide useful signals of early patterns within the electorate and voter enthusiasm, it is not a predictive measure of Election Day results.