The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020

Corey Redmond from Austin, Texas: Can we get a FiveThirtyEight-made investigation into which places allow you to track/verify your vote across the U.S.?

Assuming you’re referring to mail votes, sure thing! At least 44 states plus Washington, D.C., now have online portals where you can track your absentee ballot. Unfortunately, though, Corey, your home state of Texas is one of the exceptions! The rest of you can find a link to your state’s portal by heading to our “How To Vote In 2020” page, clicking on your state and checking under the “Submitting an absentee ballot” section.

We just got an answer to one of our six “unresolved questions” from earlier. In a 5-3 ruling along ideological lines, the Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that absentee ballots in Wisconsin must be received by Election Day, not just postmarked by then. Voting-rights groups had been fighting for a receipt date of Nov. 9.

Happy Monday! Only eight days remain until Election Day 2020 — and thanks to ongoing litigation, the exact rules of the election are still up in the air in a handful of states. Here are the major court cases yet to be resolved:

• Republicans are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a legal settlement reached by North Carolina to extend the absentee-ballot receipt deadline to Nov. 12.
• The Supreme Court already allowed Pennsylvania’s new absentee-ballot deadline (postmarked by Nov. 3, received by Nov. 6) to stand, but Republicans have initiated a new lawsuit against it — possibly with the goal of having the Supreme Court reconsider the matter after Amy Coney Barrett has been sworn in.
• Voting-rights groups are also asking the Supreme Court to allow Wisconsin to count ballots that arrive after Nov. 3 as long as they are postmarked by then.
• Republicans are appealing a court ruling that affirmed Minnesota’s new rule that absentee ballots can count if they’re received as late as Nov. 10 (assuming they’re postmarked by Nov. 3).
• The Texas Supreme Court is considering whether to overturn Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that counties can have no more than one ballot drop site each.
• And New Orleans is suing the state of Louisiana to allow absentee ballots to be dropped off at sites other than local election offices.

We should get a final word on these questions very soon.