On Politics: The first votes will soon be cast
The first votes will soon be cast
The latest, with 54 days to go
When Krissi Miles, the manager of absentee voting in Tuscaloosa County, Ala., began electronically issuing ballots to military service members yesterday, she was taking a routine step that's part of a milestone for this election. The first ballots have gone out. "In just a few minutes, I will start issuing ballots for all the other applicants," Miles told me over the phone today, very kindly and politely suggesting that I let her return to her work mailing out absentee ballots. "I have anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500, much more than I anticipated." As my little ticker above says, there are officially 54 days left in the fall campaign (count 'em!). But the fact that absentee ballots are going in the mail in Alabama, and that other states will soon follow suit with various forms of absentee, mail or early in-person voting, means that for a growing number of Americans, Election Day is practically here. It's a big deal for the campaigns, one that heralds a shift from simply persuading voters to turning them out. In a narrow election that is best described as a "game of inches," the pool of voters who can still change their minds is about to start shrinking, because their ballots will be cast. It's also a new season of stress on the election system itself, one that is already being tested by lawsuits that have created complications and uncertainties for the workers who oversee it. At the same time, Donald Trump is stoking doubts about mail voting while his allies are trying to get his supporters to use that method of voting. Delays from the courtsMichella Huff, the director of elections in Surry County, N.C., had some 544 absentee ballots just about ready to go out by mail on Friday — when that process was supposed to begin in North Carolina — but then the courts intervened. On Monday, the State Supreme Court ruled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name needed to be removed from the ballots, meaning that every one of the complex packages Huff and her team prepared will need to be redone. That probably means destroying the old ballots, Huff said, printing new ones, and dealing with the distrust of voters primed by false stories about election fraud. "I had somebody send me a text: 'I want to be present when the ballots are going to be destroyed, when's that going to be?'" Huff said. "It's one more piece to add to the layers of distrust about the process." In Pennsylvania, another issue over the status of third-party candidates has also slowed election workers' ability to prepare mail ballots, said Forrest Lehman, the director of elections in Lycoming County. "We can't do a thing. We need to know exactly who is on and not on the ballot," Lehman said. "If you work too far ahead, you'll just end up crying into your beer later when the ballot changes." Falsehoods from the former presidentThe kind of distrust Huff and other election workers have faced has been stoked for years by Trump and his allies, who have claimed — incorrectly and without evidence — that mail and absentee voting are rife with cheating. Trump picked that back up over the weekend, when he posted on his social media site that a significant percentage of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were "fraudulent." It was a spurious claim — there are no ballots in Pennsylvania yet in the mail — and one that Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Mr. Trump's daughter-in-law, struggled to respond to in an interview on CNN. She said the former president was referring to the 2020 election — in which case the claim would still be untrue — and insisted that her party wanted voters to cast ballots by mail and in person either early or on Election Day. "Donald Trump very much wants every Republican voter to vote however they feel most comfortable," she said. And then there's the mailElection officials are already expressing worries about whether mail ballots will be delivered on time, especially as Election Day draws closer. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of election officials sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service to lay out their concerns. "We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues," the letter said, adding, "Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process." Election officials said their concerns were rooted in their experience receiving completed mail ballots well after they were postmarked. Officials have long urged voters to request and return mail ballots as early as they can — but they worry that their efforts won't be enough. "There is no amount of proactive communication election officials can do to account for U.S.P.S.'s inability to meet their own service delivery timelines," the letter said.
Does crowd size matter?One subplot of this election has been former President Donald Trump's interest in how the crowds at his rallies compare in size with those at Vice President Kamala Harris's rallies — a point she needled him on during the debate on Tuesday. Experts say crowd size doesn't correlate to election results — but they don't dismiss its significance. I asked my colleague Ashley Wu to tell us more. The question of crowd size loomed so large this summer that my colleagues and I counted the number of people at several Trump and Harris rallies for a recent story. We know drawing big crowds doesn't mean a candidate will win — just ask Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — but experts say big crowds do come with intangible benefits. Here are some of them: They prove enthusiasmLarge, dense crowds can energize those who attend the events, and candidates themselves as they speak. They can also drive a "bandwagon" effect, said Todd Belt, the director of the political management program at George Washington University. "Politics can be a lonely game," Belt told me. "Sometimes you wonder, are there other people who think like me?" Crowds help show people that there are. They act as symbolic party glueHarris entered the race just 53 days ago. Her large crowds have contributed to the image of party unity, said Marc Trussler, the director of data sciences at the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies. The rallies, he said, which are often attended by diverse groups of voters, help to plaster over cracks dividing the Democratic Party, like disagreements over Israel's war in Gaza or immigration. Seeing big rallies, he said, makes voters "remember why they identify as a Democrat, and less likely for them to remember the ways in which they differ from other groups within that party." They help campaigns organizeKevin Madden, who served as senior strategist and spokesman for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, told me that rally crowds can be particularly useful for obtaining supporters' contact information. They use those to solicit donations, seek volunteers and — of course — remind them to vote. They also motivate voters to get involved. Rose Fishman, 27, who attended a Harris rally in Savannah, Ga., last month, said that watching the speeches online was one thing, but seeing one in person and feeling the energy of everyone was another. "It definitely makes me want to get out and volunteer more," she said. They bother the other sideHarris and her campaign know how much crowd-size comparisons rattle the former president — which she made clear during the debate. Belt thinks that the more her campaign can "poke the bear" and get Trump off his campaign message to voters, the better it is for her. — Ashley Wu, with reporting contributed by Bedel Saget Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
|
posted by Goatz @ 4:01 PM
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home