Americans cast or post record 22.7 million votes as presidential race enters final weeks
A record was set as almost 23 million Americans cast or mailed in their ballot in the 2020 campaign, 17 days before the election.
According to a project that aggregates the number of early votes across the US, more than 22.7 million Americans in more than 40 states had voted or mailed in their ballots by Friday afternoon.
That is more than three times the six million that voted early in 2016, indicating a high turnout in the 2020 election.
The southern state of Louisiana became the latest to start early voting on Friday and long lines were reported in its largest city, New Orleans.
All 50 states will have ballots available for early voters by the end of this week. Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming were among the first to start the process of early voting.
Texas, Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Tennessee have all opened early voting polls.
It is not known which presidential candidate will benefit most from the enthusiasm and high early voting, but a recent poll showed Democrats were more likely to vote early or by mail.
An NPR-Marist poll found 73 per cent of those planning to vote by mail backing Democratic nominee Joe Biden, while 62 per cent of those who are planning to vote in person support Republican incumbent Donald Trump.
So far, Texas, Florida and California have the highest number of early votes with more than 2 million Americans voting in each of these states.
Georgia, where no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1992, has a record 1.1 million early votes.
In the swing state of Michigan, 1.3 million people voted.
In Wisconsin, almost 800,000 cast votes, and in the key state of Pennsylvania 685,000 have made their choice.
Former US president Barack Obama will travel to Pennsylvania on Wednesday in his first campaign-trail event on behalf of Mr Biden.
Mr Obama remains popular among Democrats and has taken a bigger role in this campaign to help his former vice president.
Mr Trump held rallies on Friday, including one in Georgia, a state that he carried by 5 points in 2016. But the latest polls showed him trailing or tied with Mr Biden in the state.
The president also held a large rally in Florida, despite a rising number of coronavirus cases in the state.
Figures suggest that three times more Americans have voted early in 2020 so far than voted early in 2016