This week, we looked at how early voting and vote-by-mail have changed voting patterns. Plus, a look at an election-year messaging strategy.
The Big Picture: How Americans vote now
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If you haven’t heard by now, Election Day is old news. It’s now voting season.
As of Friday afternoon, more than 17 million votes have already been cast in this year’s midterms, with still a week and a half of voting left to go. That’s the most early votes ever cast at this point in a midterm cycle, according to University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald, who runs the U.S. Elections Project.
It’s also a continuation of 2020, when American voting behavior got flipped on its head by COVID-19.
Virtually every jurisdiction in the country did something to expand access and make voting easier and safer during the early months of the pandemic, and voters responded: for the first time ever, more than half of the electorate cast their ballots before Election Day.
The question this year, was whether that was a blip or whether we’d look back on 2020 as the election that changed how America votes for good.
Judging by the early vote numbers, experts say it’s looking closer to the latter.
And a big reason for that, says Charles Stewart, an elections expert who founded MIT's Election Lab, is a trend towards more early voting access over the past two decades, even as some far-right Republicans push back against early and mail voting.
A recent report from the Center for Election Innovation & Research found that most states in the U.S. are offering options to vote early in-person or by mail to all voters this year.
"The immovable force in elections over the last 20 years hasn't changed," Stewart said. "And that is voters really demanding more convenience."
Paul Pelosi attacked: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was violently attacked by an intruder at the couple’s San Francisco home on Friday morning. A source briefed on the attack told NPR the intruder was heard shouting “Where’s Nancy” before the assault occurred.
Fetterman, Oz debate: The lone debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz took place this week. The debate was marked by the two candidates sparring over abortion rights, fracking and crime.
Another Walker accuser: A second woman says Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker — who has campaigned on a staunch anti-abortion rights platform — paid for her to obtain an abortion in 1993. The woman is declining to share her identity out of safety concerns, according to her attorney Gloria Allred, and came forward after hearing Walker deny allegations from another woman who said he paid for her to have an abortion. NPR has not been able to independently corroborate either woman's claims.
Railroad contract latest: A second railroad union rejected the tentative agreement between railroad managers, unions, and members of President Biden's administration. The move increases the possibility of a strike in November that would endanger the national supply chain if a deal is not reached.
Felon disenfranchisement: New research finds that an estimated 2% of the voting age population in the U.S. — some 4.6 million people — are disenfranchised and unable to cast a ballot due to a felony conviction. The state-level voting bans that impose such limits have a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino voters.
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In this final stretch of campaign season, both parties have been trying to control the narrative on the economy to drive voter turnout, NPR's Asma Khalid writes, stoking fears about what the other party would do to the economy if it controls Congress.
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