Votes are still being counted as I type this, but it looks like Biden might’ve actually won.
Which is a relief, but I’ll write more about that later!
The delay, as we expected, is due to the huge spike in mail-in ballots thanks to the pandemic – almost 3x the number of mail-in ballots from 2016, which is kind of NUTS if you think about the sheer volumes…
Total Ballots
- 2020 (so far) – 137 million
- 2016 – 127 million
Mail-In Ballots
- 2020 (so far) – 65 million
- 2016 – 24 million
Early Voting – In-Person Ballots
- 2020 – 36 million
- 2016 – 23 million
Election Day – In-Person Ballots
- 2020 – 36 million
- 2016 – 82 million
In a way, it’s comforting to see that so many people took the COVID precautions seriously enough to vote via mail instead of in person on election day – at least 40 million extra people at the polls certainly would’ve increased the risk of exposure! I ended up voting early for my first time and it was super easy, so it’s likely something I’ll do again in the future just to avoid the crowds even after the pandemic has passed.
…which despite the unscientific argument of many politicians, is still definitely here even with Election Day itself behind us, as the US logged another 94,000 cases and almost 1,200 deaths just yesterday. I know that even if/when Biden does win, we’ve still got a couple of months of Trump policies to deal with before he takes over, but I can only hope that come January having a different voice in the White House changes the American perspective on this virus so that we can actually get in front of it and stave off more waves while we wait for a vaccine to be ready.
