Four days ahead of the presidential election on November 8, nearly 36 million (35,995,913) early votes have been cast across the country. 

Of those who have voted so far, a slight majority (55 percent) are women, and 44 percent are men. Early voters so fast have skewed older; 75 percent are 45 years of age or older. Just a quarter are under 45. 

Nationally, slightly more of these early voters are affiliated with the Democratic Party (43 percent.) About four in 10 are Republican-affiliated, and 18 percent are not affiliated with either major party. 

Throughout Election Night, a team of survey research analysts will be crunching the numbers on who voted, what issues were on their minds and why they voted the way they did.

The team includes Stephanie Psyllos, manager of exit polling, NBC News; Scott Keeter, senior survey advisor at Pew Research Center; Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at Pew Research Center; Cary Funk, associate director of research at Pew Research Center; Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute; Maureen Michaels, president of Michaels Opinion Research Inc.; Mara Ostfeld, postdoctoral fellow, Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan; Patrick Egan, associate professor of politics and public policy at New York University; Hannah Hartig, assistant director, University of Pennsylvania's Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies; Jennifer Su, senior project director, Princeton Survey Research Associates International; and Andrew Arenge, assistant producer, NBC News. The NBC News Exit Poll Desk works closely with digital editors David Taintor and Elizabeth Johnstone to curate the stories we produce.