CNN
—
For an election in which state and local officials across the country are straining to prepare for potential problems at polling places, contentious legal battles over ballots, and disinformation about the ballot itself, Americans headed to the polling place on Tuesday.
With more than 45 million pre-election ballots cast in 47 states, officials expect high voter turnout on Election Day as legislative, state, and gubernatorial contests determine legislative and legislative powers doing.
The majority of the tens of millions of people who vote on Tuesday will have no trouble voting in an election where early voting is above 2018 levels. And most of the voting issues will be decidedly minor and minor: long lines, bad weather, technical glitches.
Voting rights advocates in major states said the first few hours of polling in Tuesday’s midterm elections appeared to be running smoothly, with only isolated problems reported.
“What we are seeing is what you would normally see on Election Day,” said Susannah Goodman, director of election security at Common Cause. “Even if a voter comes in, he may find that one of the voting machines is not working or the line is a little long.”
For example, check-in machines at some Vote Centers in Bell County, Texas, were not working on Tuesday morning due to synchronization issues related to the weekend’s shift from daylight saving time. There has also been an isolated incident of an electronic ballot book going down in Detroit, Michigan, according to Michigan State Department spokesperson Jake Lorrow.
At the same time, election officials are grappling with renewed pressure from conspiracy theorists. A growing number of Republican politicians, led by former President Donald Trump, have attacked the legitimacy of the vote, repeating false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and launching similar attacks in these midterm elections. I forewarned.
State and local officials, and advocates for voting rights, are alarmed that political attacks, including marked increases in threats of violence against election officials, are causing an exodus of local election officials responsible for voting. ringing.
Early voting provided a preview of potential problems big and small that could arise on Election Day. Armed ballot box workers have been accused of conspiring to intimidate voters in Arizona, and a legal battle is ongoing in Pennsylvania over a technical error that invalidated mail-in ballots.
Legal efforts to challenge these issues are also growing. There are about 120 total lawsuits over the ballot filed as of November 3, compared to 68 before the 2020 election day. More than half of the lawsuits seek to restrict access to ballots, according to the liberal Democracy Docket. – Dedicated to voting rights and media platforms that track election lawsuits.
In Pennsylvania, some counties are urging voters to amend absentee or improperly dated absentee ballots that the state Supreme Court has ordered to be excluded, but federal challenges are still looming. In Michigan on Monday, a judge dismissed a lawsuit from a GOP candidate secretary of state seeking to overthrow absentee ballots in Democratic-majority Detroit.
Georgia’s Cobb County on Monday extended the deadline for filing absentee ballots for nearly 1,000 voters to Nov. 14 after a procedural error at an elections office prevented ballots from being mailed until days before Election Day. Did.
Beyond legal battles, election officials have harassed and threatened officials in the 2020 elections, anticipating possible clashes with election deniers as they prepare to actively monitor the upcoming midterm elections.
North Carolina has reported about 15 alleged threats to the state elections commission since early in-person voting began.
The incident included several individuals outside the county board of elections taking video of elections officials’ license plates, and elections officials being tracked from polling places to elections offices and then to neighborhoods. It contained one situation.
In Arizona, the secretary of state has issued 18 referrals to law enforcement in connection with the threats to dropboxes, including threatening messages against government officials and several voters who reported being filmed in a Maricopa County dropbox last week. has been sent. A federal judge earlier this month banned a right-wing group in the state from publicly carrying a gun or wearing protective gear after complaints about aggressive patrols of ballot boxes in the state. We have imposed new limits.
In Beaumont, Texas, a federal judge has barred poll workers working at election sites from engaging in behavior black voters claim is threatening.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. Trunkel issued a temporary injunction Monday in a lawsuit filed by the Beaumont Division of the NAACP. ballot paper.
Federal officials have warned that domestic violent extremists are posing a growing threat to the 2022 midterm elections.
Election officials are on guard against conspiracy theories as the polls take place and the tally begins on Tuesday. Conspiracy theories often spread like wildfire, but they are simply not true.
States such as Pennsylvania and Michigan have laws that prohibit early processing of mail-in ballots, so it may take several days for all ballots to be tallied in those states. A “red mirage” is expected in Pennsylvania as the Senate election could determine which party controls the House. That’s because Election Day ballots are expected to include more Republicans, and more Democrats are likely to be tallied before the expected mail-in ballots. use.
The opposite is true in Arizona, where vote-by-mail ballots are processed as soon as they are received. In other words, these ballots are the first to be counted after voting closes.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
