Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Way more Americans want to vote early this year, poll shows

Ballot drop box in Florida

Floridians drop off their August primary ballots. Nationally, many more voters prefer an early in-person experience.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic has already changed how millions of Americans will vote this year, and a new poll makes clear it's also going to change when they vote.

Six in 10 Americans want to cast their ballots before Election Day, either in-person at an early voting location or after getting to a drop box or the post office to return an absentee envelope, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Thursday. Four years ago, four in 10 voters cast their ballots ahead of time.

The anticipated surge way-ahead-of-deadline voting — which started a week ago, when the first absentee ballots were mailed in North Carolina, with the first in-person ballots set to get cast a week from now in Minnesota — makes the civic-minded proud but also makes election administrators anxious.


Many states don't allow the processing of envelopes or the tabulating of early votes until much closer to the election, so a rush of voting in September and October won't necessarily translate to quick and complete returns the night of Nov. 3.

Officials in many states, including most of the presidential battlegrounds, also say they do not have the people or equipment ready to process the deluge of paper. And the infusion of cash they were counting on from Congress to pay for election preparations now seems to be an all but evaporated hope, after a partisan Senate vote on Thursday almost entirely eliminated prospects for another round of coronavirus economic stimulus and federal aid before the election in 53 days.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Most people in the survey indicated they would prefer to cast their ballot in person at a polling place (49 percent), rather than it by mail (33 percent) or turn it in it at an elections office, polling place or drop box (16 percent). Still, absentee voting interest this year is nearly double what it was four years ago, according to the Election Assistance Commission.

Pennsylvania and New Hampshire are the only battlegrounds on the roster of 10 states that do not have the option to vote in person before Election Day this year. The periods for early voting range from four to 45 days in the rest of the country.

Even though voting by mail will be more widely used this fall, only 28 percent are "very confident" their ballot will be counted accurately that way, the poll found. Confidence levels are much higher (62 percent) when asked about going to the polls on Election Day.

A report published Thursday by Politico found that Democrats are far outnumbering Republicans in absentee ballot requests in several battlegrounds, including North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida. While votes for Joe Biden are likely to be cast (if not tabulated) before Nov. 3, President Trump will be hoping for smooth operations on Election Day when a majority of his base is likely to head to the polls.

The poll also found a stark contrast in views on election integrity. A lopsided majority of Black voters (71 percent) believe it is easier for white citizens to vote, compared to just one-third of white people who say the same.

The disparity is less severe between Latino and white voters. Just over two-fifths of Hispanics say it's easier for white people to access the ballot box, whereas 37 percent of white voters agree with that sentiment.

The poll, which has a 3 percentage point margin of error, was of 1,929 people nationwide Aug. 24-31.

Read More

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A street vendor selling public domain Donald Trump paraphernalia and souvenirs. The souvenirs are located right across the street from the White House and taken on the afternoon of July 21, 2019 near Pennslyvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Getty Images, P_Wei

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A common point of bewilderment today among many of Trump’s “establishment” critics is the all too tepid response to Trump’s increasingly brazen shattering of democratic norms. True, he started this during his first term, but in his second, Trump seems to relish the weaponization of his presidency to go after his enemies and to brandish his corrupt dealings, all under the Trump banner (e.g. cyber currency, Mideast business dealings, the Boeing 747 gift from Qatar). Not only does Trump conduct himself with impunity but Fox News and other mainstream media outlets barely cover them at all. (And when left-leaning media do, the interest seems to wane quickly.)

Here may be the source of the puzzlement: the left intelligentsia continues to view and characterize MAGA as a political movement, without grasping its transcendence into a new dominant cultural order. MAGA rose as a counter-establishment partisan drive during Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent first administration; however, by the 2024 election, it became evident that MAGA was but the eye of a full-fledged cultural shift, in some ways akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Keep ReadingShow less
The U.S. Is Rushing To Make AI Deals With Gulf Countries, But Who Will Help Keep Children Safe?

A child's hand holding an adult's hand.

Getty Images, LaylaBird

The U.S. Is Rushing To Make AI Deals With Gulf Countries, But Who Will Help Keep Children Safe?

As the United States deepens its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships abroad, it is moving fast — signing deals, building labs, and exporting tools. Recently, President Donald Trump announced sweeping AI collaborations with Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These agreements, worth billions, are being hailed as historic moments for digital diplomacy and technological leadership.

But amid the headlines and handshakes, I keep asking the same question: where is child protection in all of this?

Keep ReadingShow less
Illinois Residents Grapple With Urban Flooding

Rear view of a person standing in the street flooded with water

Getty Images//Stock Photo

Illinois Residents Grapple With Urban Flooding

Following months of research, canvassing, and listening to community needs, journalists, including Britton Struthers-Lugo, produced solutions-based stories about the challenges faced by the Berwyn, Illinois, community.

In Part 1, Struthers-Lugo examines the issue of urban flooding, a growing concern for residents and infrastructure in Berwyn.

Keep ReadingShow less
Proposed Proof-of-Citizenship Bill Could Impact All Registered Voters in Texas

Opponents of a proof-of-citizenship bill before Texas lawmakers say many women in rural areas, who could get targeted by the bill, do not have a birth certificate matching their current last name.

Golib Tolibov/Adobe Stock AI

Proposed Proof-of-Citizenship Bill Could Impact All Registered Voters in Texas

Voting rights advocates in Texas are speaking out against a proof-of-citizenship bill before lawmakers.

Senate Bill 16 would require new registrants and some existing registered voters to prove they are U.S. citizens.

Amber Mills, issue advocacy director for the Move Texas Civic Fund, said the requirement would be in addition to what the state already does to check someone's eligibility.

"When you're completing a voter form, you do also have to submit either your driver's license number or your Social Security number," Mills pointed out. "That's really important because that is how the state verifies who you are, and that's a key indicator that they use to protect their databases on the back end."

Even if you were born in the U.S., the bill could require you to show proof of citizenship with a passport or birth certificate matching your current name. According to the Secure Democracy Foundation, more than 38% percent of rural and small-town Texans do not have a passport.

Anyone who cannot prove citizenship would be placed on a separate voter roll and could only cast ballots in the U.S. House and Senate races.

Emily French, policy director for the advocacy group Common Cause Texas, said the additional barriers could prevent many residents from casting their votes in local, state and presidential races.

"All the DPS systems, all the immigration systems which say that they are citizens, but there can still be mistakes that mark them as noncitizens and could throw them off the voter rolls until they come in with these documents that they don't have," French explained.

The bill directs the Texas Secretary of State's Office to check all registered voters' status by the end of the year and send the names of registered voters who have not proven their citizenship before September 2025 to county elections offices.

Mills noted if you are flagged, there is no online system to comply with the request and all paperwork must be submitted in person.

"We are not disputing the goal of having only eligible citizens on the voter rolls, but we know that Texas already has strong systems in place," Mills emphasized. "It's ultimately the state's responsibility, the county's responsibility to do these voter roll checks, but what SB 16 would do is not change any of that, not improve any of that. It would just add an additional burden."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less