Trump focuses on virus and jobs ahead of Election Day

With less than two weeks until Election Day, more than 51 million people have already voted, either inperson, or through ballots, surpassing 2016’s overall early vote total. Election experts predict historic rates of turnout.

More than 257 million people in the US are 18 or older, and nearly 240 million citizens are eligible to vote this year, according to the US Elections Project. Eligible voters include people living overseas but not non-citizens or people convicted of a felony, depending on state law

The US saw the lowest rates of eligible voter turnout at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. Just 6.31% of eligible voters turned out in 1792. The elections of 1820, 1789 and 1816 also saw rates below 20%.

The highest turnout was in 2008—Barack Obama v John Mccain at 61.65%.

In the last week of October 2020, election fever is marching in step with the

Chinese virus.

The queues outside polling stations appear longer than normal owing to social distancing. Most voters carry their mobile phones and listen and sway to music through their air-buds.

The Presidential election system is curious. There are fifty US states, with 438 members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators. The Electoral College therefore has 538 electors (different from Congressmen

and Senators) who elect the President. Electors can vary from 55 for California to 3 for Alaska, 270 electoral votes is the magic number.

If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state by even one ballot, all the electors of that state are obliged to vote for him or her.

Theoretically, therefore, if a candidate wins 12 large states, he gets 276 electoral votes and packs his bags for