Gallery: Scenes from southern Illinois polls

By Photo Desk, Daily Egyptian

November 3, 2020

On Nov. 3, southern Illinoisians went to their local polls to cast their votes for the 2020 election.

Polls have now closed across the majority of the U.S. and as of publication, Former Vice President Joe Biden was in the lead with 209 electoral votes while President Donald Trump had 112, according to the Associated Press.

The AP also called Illinois for Biden and said Incumbent Dick Durbin (D), won the state’s senate race.

(See more: Associated Press calls Illinois race for Biden).

(See more: Associated Press Calls Illinois Senate Race for Durbin).

The ballot-counting process in many states has been slowed by a record number of mail-in ballots and early voting totals that are still being processed.

As of Nov. 3 at 11:14 a.m., there were 5,752 early voters and 5,637 mail-in voters in Jackson County. The number of early voters and mail-in voters has increased by about 1,100 ballots and quintupled respectively since the 2016 presidential election.

Nationally, turnout for the 2020 election is set to shatter the 2016 records.

On the national level, as of the print deadline, there were 99.7 million early votes cast, representing three-quarters of the number of votes cast in the entire 2016 election, according to the New York Times.

(See more: Early Votes Near 100 Million as campaign races to close).

Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin are this election’s “battleground states.”

As of publication, the AP called Connecticut, DC, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island for Biden. It called Alabama, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Utah, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Oklahoma for Trump.

Experts say the results of the 2020 election could remain uncertain for weeks.

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