Early voting surges across battlegrounds, Florida on pace to pass 70% before election day

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida is one of four states starting early in-person voting on Monday.

Three more states will start on Tuesday, and by the end of the week there will be a total of 40 states offering some form of early voting.

Watch: Here’s what the first day of early voting looked like in Orange County

“The headline continues to be the unprecedented number of people who are voting early and now that we’re starting to see states with in-person early, this isn’t just a mail ballot phenomenon, it’s an in-person voting phenomenon as well,” says Professor Michael McDonald of the University of Florida.

McDonald has been tracking voting data from across the nation through the site “United States Elections Project.”

Watch: Early voting kicks off in Florida, more than 475K mail-in ballots already cast in Central Florida

“Part of what is going on here is a shift in behavior, people who normally vote on Election Day are voting early there is also high turn-out,” says McDonald. “We’re starting from a high level of early voting it may drop a little bit but is probably going to pick up as we get closer to Election Day and that’s why I continue to think that we’re going to have an unprecedented number, over 150 million people vote in the election, that would be the most in raw numbers in the history of the country and the highest turn out rate since 1908.”

Watch: 9 things to know if you plan to vote by mail in Florida

According to the numbers compiled by the United States Elections Project, as of Sunday, 27.9 million have already voted. The site notes that in 2016 only about 5.9 million votes had been cast at about the same time.

Cox Media Group