More than 17 million Americans have already voted. What does it mean?

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Election Day is two weeks away but as of Tuesday afternoon, more than 17.5 million Americans had already cast their ballots, according to the Associated Press.

Many state and local election officials in critical swing states like North Carolina and Georgia were expecting a high turnout for early voting, but not this high.

2020 was a record for us on the first day of in-person early voting and now we’ve broken that record," North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said Friday.

In Georgia, as of Tuesday afternoon, 1.84 million people had voted—more than 25% of the state's active voters, according to Georgia's secretary of state's office.

"That is more than 1 in 4 voters, with nine more mandatory days of Early Voting to go. These are amazing numbers. Congratulations to our counties for their work and voters for theirs," Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling posted on X Tuesday.

The majority of Georgians who've voted already, about 55%, are women.

“We know that women generally vote in larger numbers than men. Women register in higher numbers than men. You know, it’s not a huge difference but it’s enough. It could make a difference in certain areas if women come out in larger numbers," University of New Haven political science Adjunct Professor Patricia Crouse said.

In Pennsylvania, more than one million ballots had been cast by Tuesday afternoon, according to the AP. Of those ballots, more than two-thirds were cast by registered Democrats.

"I think that has to do with some of the rhetoric behind you know, the Republicans telling people that you can't trust early voting, that you can't trust absentee ballots," Crouse said. “Democrats I think always turn out in higher numbers because they’ve always been encouraged to do so, they’ve always been encouraged to come out for early voting, to cast an absentee ballot.”

After losing the White House 2020, in this election, the Republican party has changed its tune with its "Swamp the Vote" get-out-the-vote campaign.

“Whether you vote early, absentee, by mail or in person, we are going to protect the vote," former President Donald Trump said in a promotional video.

Knowing a lot can change in two weeks, the Harris and Trump campaigns so far haven't reacted publicly to early voting data.

“This isn’t really an indication of anything right now. It’s way too early to make any sort of you know, judgments about what this means for either candidate but I do think that you know, promoting it would help both parties," Crouse said.

The 2020 pandemic-era election was the first in American history in which the majority of voters did not cast their ballots in person on Election Day. Since then, many have come to prefer the convenience that comes with voting early but based on turnout so far, in-person Election Day voting will be the main event.