US presidential election: In-person voting begins in three states

Almost seven weeks before the US presidential election, voters in three states began early in-person voting on Friday. Polling stations are now open in Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota, where voters can cast their ballots in the polls before November 5th.

In this way, the electoral authorities want to enable citizens to take part in the election despite possible scheduling difficulties and also to reduce the crowds on the actual election day. Dozens of voters gathered at a polling station in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday, as journalists from the AFP news agency reported. Voting by post is also possible.

The number of early votes cast has increased steadily in recent US elections. In 2020, when then-incumbent Donald Trump and Joe Biden competed against each other during the coronavirus pandemic, there was record voter turnout and a record 155 million early votes cast.

However, postal voting in the USA in particular is prone to errors and can result in legal disputes. In addition, counting all postal votes could take days or even weeks in some states. Especially in close races in electorally crucial states, it could take some time until the winner is determined.

While the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump discredited postal voting in 2020 and portrayed it as a means of election fraud, he made a U-turn in this year’s election campaign and called on his supporters to also use this type of voting.

In the USA, the president is elected indirectly through an electoral college to which the states send a total of 538 electors. The winner must have at least 270. The all-or-nothing rule applies in almost all states, which means that all electors are awarded to the winner.

The polls predict an extremely close race between Trump and the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, so the results from a handful of states are likely to decide the winner in this year’s election.

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