Americans by the millions cast ballots on Tuesday at libraries, schools and arenas amid a deadly pandemic, in an orderly show of civic duty that belied deep tensions shaping one of the most polarizing presidential campaigns in U.S. history.
The face masks worn by many voters and the sight of boarded-up stores in some city centers were reminders of two big issues defining the 2020 election, with COVID-19 still ravaging parts of the country after a summer of sometimes violence-marred protests against police brutality and racism.
A few worrisome developments stood out during a day that was otherwise largely uneventful.
The FBI and the New York attorney general’s office opened investigations into torrents of anonymous robocalls urging people in several states to stay home.
And a federal judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service to conduct a sweep of some facilities across the country for undelivered mail-in ballots and to ship them immediately to election offices to be counted.
But few if any major disruptions were reported at polling sites through day as civil liberties groups and law enforcement were on high alert for any interference with voters.
In one troubling incident, a man legally carrying an unconcealed firearm was arrested and charged with trespassing at a polling site in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In Miami County, Ohio, a woman rammed her car accidentally into a polling site as she was on her way to vote, damaging a wall, but no one was injured. Authorities said she managed to cast her vote, and the location remained open.
In New York City, some voting lines snaked around blocks, but in many places, from Los Angeles to Detroit and Atlanta, lines were short or non-existent. Poll workers surmised this was due to an unprecedented wave of early voting. More than 100 million ballots were cast before Election Day, a new record.
“I lost my absentee ballot, and I’m not going to miss this vote,” said Ginnie House, 22, an actor and creative writing student who flew back to Atlanta from New York just for the election.
Shivering in the cold, she was first in line among about a dozen people lined up before sunrise at a polling station set up at the Piedmont Park Conservancy.
She said she was voting for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, a former vice president seeking to replace the Republican incumbent Donald Trump in the White House.
On the opposite side of the partisan divide was Linda King, 73, an education coordinator for a nonprofit, who found the parking lot jammed when she arrived early in the morning to cast her ballot for Trump at a church in Champion, Ohio, then decided to come back in the afternoon.
“I had never seen anything like that,” she recounted. King said she was determined to vote in person on Election Day out of habit rather than fears about mail-in voting. “I don’t celebrate Christmas in November,” she said.
TENSIONS FROM TIMES SQUARE TO TEXAS
The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said it was deploying personnel to 18 states to watch for voter intimidation and suppression.
Staff at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based advocacy group, told reporters they were concerned about voting machines not working in three counties in Georgia, forcing voters to fill in paper ballots and raising concerns the paper back-ups would run out.
Business owners in some cities nailed plywood slabs over street-level windows for fear that civil unrest could break out later, especially if the election’s outcome were delayed.
In New York City, the Empire State Building and Macy’s department store were among those boarded up. On Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, staff had stripped the display windows at Tiffany & Co. and Van Cleef & Arpels of their jewels.
Although Tuesday was unfolding with relative calm, tensions had flared around the country in the run-up to Election Day.
Trump supporters driving pick-up trucks down a Texas highway on Friday surrounded a tour bus carrying Biden campaign staff. In North Carolina over the weekend, police pepper-sprayed a group of mostly Democrats marching to polling stations. And members of an anti-government militia group were charged last month with plotting to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan.
While Election Day voting appeared to be going smoothly in most places, there were some scattered glitches.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections on Tuesday extended voting by up to 45 minutes at four precincts that opened late, with the posting of returns delayed statewide until all polls were closed.
Likewise, Hidalgo County, Texas, said all 74 of its polling locations would stay open an extra hour after 10 sites experienced “laptop check-in issues.”
Still, some Americans worried about a protracted ballot count in pivotal states leaving a clear winner uncertain for days or more.
Trump, who holds no authority over state-controlled vote-tallying, said he thinks states should simply stop counting legal ballots once Tuesday has passed.
Disputing Trump’s assertion that to do otherwise was “dangerous,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, told reporters on Tuesday it was normal for ballots to be tabulated days after polls closed.
“That’s not a sign of something nefarious,” he said. “Will we have a final number on Election Night? Well, the answer is, of course not. Because we never have a final number on Election Night.”
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Nathan Layne in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, Ernest Scheyder in Houston, Michael Martina in Detroit and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Miami; Simon Lewis in Tampa, Florida; Maria Caspani in New York; Gabriella Borter in Toledo, Ohio; Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Lucy Nicholson in Beverly Hills, California; Julia Harte, Raphael Satter and Sarah Lynch in Washington; Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Patricia Zengerle in Raleigh, North Carolina; Writing by Jonathan Allen, Frank McGurty and Steve Gorman; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Cynthia Osterman)
