At least 667,000 Virginians -- over 3 1/2 times more than in all of 2017 have submitted early ballots

[Tony_FLADEM]

At least 667,000 Virginians — over 3 1/2 times more than in all of 2017 — have submitted early ballots for the general election taking place next week, according to data from the Democratic data firm TargetSmart.

Why it matters: The state's bellwether governor's race is expected to be close. It's hard to read much from early vote counts, though, given Democrats have generally been more likely to vote early than Republicans, and early voting has become more accessible and popular only recently in the state.

By the numbers: New state voting laws and the coronavirus pandemic have made early and mail-in voting more popular in Virginia. By comparison, fewer than 190,000 votes were cast early in all of 2017 — when Virginia last had a gubernatorial election.

https://www.axios.com/virginia-governor-election-early-vote-youngkin-mcauliffe-56fcdab5-a441-47b8-b755-85183266bb23.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=politics-virginia&fbclid=IwAR2dCAi-MEwaSS7t27GczqF3nWuVEQIiGT-R6psL0OOgMoRGbNdRM4WomT8

[FloridaBlues]

1. How does it compare to the 2020 election at this point?

[spooky3]

2. I think there were over a million early votes in 2020 at this stage. Here's a link

to stats for 2020 and the site also has them for 2021 and 2017:

https://www.vpap.org/elections/early-voting/november-2020-election/

The total as of several days after the election was more than 2 million.

Total so far for 2021 is about 725k.

[PortTack]

3. Big big turn out..equals dem win!!

[JudyM]

4. Seems like tentatively good news

though the polls suggest a tight race.

Here’s hoping every one of those ballots is counted.