Some took their precautions: a book to pass the time, a folding chair to endure the wait. All are masked, posted two meters away from each other. At ten o’clock in the morning, Wednesday, October 7, the sun is already beating down and a long line winds past the government offices of Fairfax County (Virginia). Barely behind, two tents in the colors of the candidates, blue for Democrat Joe Biden, red for Republican Donald Trump, welcome voters. It takes forty-five minutes before entering the polling stations. But complainers are rare. “I thought I would avoid the long queues of November 3, it’s a failure! But at least the weather is nice ”, explains Mike Smith with a smile. This 48-year-old civil servant holds “To vote in person to be sure that [sa] voice be heard “.
Virginia is one of the first American states to have launched early voting (in person or by mail) for the November 3 presidential election at the end of September. American tradition, this procedure responds this year to a particular situation, linked to the pandemic, controversies over the electoral system and the political climate.
Like 36 states, Virginia has made the conditions easier and no longer asks voters to justify their choice on professional or medical grounds. Since then, the success has not been denied. “We are breaking historical records”, welcomes Ibraheem Samirah, a local elected official, young, of immigrant and democratic origin, like this urban county which has helped to make Virginia a “blue” state (the color of the Democratic Party). Here, more than 820,000 people have already made their choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, or 20% of the number of those who moved in 2016.
Partisan enthusiasm
And the craze is national. Across the country, 5.6 million Americans voted at the advance polls in some 20 states; Four years ago, a month before polling day, only 80,000 people (out of 139 million voters) had seized this possibility, according to the count of the United States Elections Project site. But enthusiasm is also partisan: 62% of Democratic voters say they want to exercise their civic duty before election day, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, against only 28% of Republicans. This unprecedented gap between the intentions of the two camps underlines the politicization of American public life, including the electoral process.
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