Nearly one million early votes have been cast in Louisiana for the November 3rd Presidential Election.
JMC Analytics pollster John Couvillon says between early voting and mail-in ballots 964,000 votes have been cast, shattering 2016’s record of 531,000. He says the primary reasons why we’ve shattered that record is that the state added three days of early voting, extended early voting hours, and saw a large increase in mail-in balloting likely linked to pandemic concerns.
146,000 of those early votes were by mail. Couvillon anticipates about another 40,000 mail-in ballots have yet to be counted which would put us above a million total early votes cast.
Couvillon says the early vote was marginally more Democratic than in past years, showing an increase in Democratic enthusiasm relative to Republicans, but not substantially so.
“That probably is worth a point or two in a negative sense against any Republican candidate,” said Couvillon. “That really only matters in marginal areas such as the mayor’s race in East Baton Rouge Parish.”
Couvillon estimates that we could see 73 percent total participation for the November 3rd election. He disagrees with analysts who say early voting isn’t indicative of total participation.
“Some of it is a frontloading of those who would have voted on Election Day anyway, but some of it truly is an increase in turnout,” said Couvillon who adds that if his projections hold early votes will account for 45 percent of all votes cast.
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin is also predicting a total November 3rd election turnout of 70 percent.
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