STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – This is the first presidential election since the pandemic.
The race between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 broke records by having the highest turnout since the 1900s, according to census.gov.
“The year 2020 was largely defined by COVID, and so you saw significant turnout due to mail-in ballots, early voting, and many nationwide trends that profoundly impacted turnout election,” said Dr. Brian Shoup, professor and professor in the department. head of the department of political science and public administration at MSU.
According to Statista, in 2020, the turnout rate in Mississippi was 60.2%.
Shoup says many factors affect voter turnout.
“I think the higher turnout rate now is largely due to the extent to which the political party that we vote for, the candidates that we vote for, are part of our identity, and I think historically that doesn’t may not have been as strong a factor. dynamic in terms of what drove people to the polls,” Shoup said.
Shoup also suggests that social media may have impacted higher voter turnout this year, in an effort to reach younger or underrepresented audiences.
“That’s certainly the case in this day and age where we’re dealing with polarization, social media and many other dynamics that are forcing people to participate at a pace that they haven’t historically,” Shoup said .
Shoup said there has also been an increase in early voting.
However, the results may not be finalized Tuesday evening.
“Early voter turnout has increased significantly and some laws have been passed in some states that make it difficult to count those early votes until the polls close,” Shoup said.
Shoup said voter turnout was low in 2016, but has increased since then.
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