The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020

On Friday, I wrote about ongoing litigation in North Carolina and what that meant for absentee ballots that had mistakes (such as missing signatures). The state had paused processing these ballots until they knew how to fix them, which meant that every day that passed was one less day voters had to potentially correct their ballot.

Luckily for them, though, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced on Monday that the state would start processing rejected ballots so that people can address those mistakes ASAP.

As Nathaniel wrote earlier today, we’re busy tracking what we can expect in terms of results on election night, and in some states like Ohio, it sounds as if we could be waiting up to two weeks. So which states at this point do we anticipate to be the biggest messes? And which states seem to have their act together?

Nathaniel: Well, I want to be very clear that taking a long time to count votes does not mean a state is a mess. It’s better to have a clean and accurate count that takes several days than a messy, error-riddled count that gets released on election night.

Sarah: Sure… but couldn’t some of these delays have been avoided with better planning?

Nathaniel: In some cases, yes. But other states are constricted by state law. For instance, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t allow election officials to even start processing absentee ballots until Election Day, virtually guaranteeing that they will report results late. Michigan was in a similar situation until the legislature passed a bill allowing them to start processing absentee ballots on Monday, Nov. 2 — but that’s still not very much time.

Maya: On the other hand, you have states like Arizona, which is historically very friendly to voting by mail, modifying state law to ease the vote counting process. In 2019, the Arizona state legislature passed a law allowing counties to start counting early ballots up to two weeks ahead of Election Day (previously, counties could only start one week before). Those early ballot counts will be included in the initial results released on Nov. 3, according to the Arizona secretary of state.

Nathaniel: Arizona is interesting to me, Maya. On paper, they look very well prepared for a tidy count on election night. But in the 2018 midterms, they kept releasing new results for a week after the election (in which Democrat Kyrsten Sinema overtook Republican Martha McSally in the Senate race). And the Maricopa County recorder is warning that some ballots will not be reported until Thursday or Friday this year.

Maya: Georgia is interesting, too, in that it is one of a handful of states that allow ballot processing to begin upon receipt. Compare that to a state like Michigan, which is only allowing cities of more than 25,000 people to begin processing ballots the day before Election Day. As a result, I can see a scenario where Georgia reports a much larger share of its vote on election night even though both Georgia and Michigan currently have Nov. 3 ballot receipt deadlines.

Kaleigh: Georgia is certainly one state to watch. Not only could it be a key battleground state, it also has had a number of lawsuits surrounding election administration and a disastrous primary with voters never receiving absentee ballots and hours-long lines to vote in person.

Nathaniel: Florida and Texas are two competitive states, though, that will probably produce results quickly. That’s because Florida starts processing absentee ballots weeks before Election Day and requires all absentees to arrive by Nov. 3. In fact, during their primary, we got almost complete results within a couple hours. Texas, meanwhile, is one of only five states that is not allowing anyone who wants to vote by mail. That means the election should be relatively unchanged there, which means (hopefully) results on Nov. 3.

Two big wild cards are North Carolina and Ohio. Both of those states process and report early absentee ballots quickly, but they also accept absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day. So it all depends on how close the early vote is in those states and how many ballots arrive after Election Day.

Maya: If anyone wants to check out which states accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, or which states don’t allow everyone to vote by mail, check out our state-by-state guide to voting in 2020, which is updated daily with the latest rulings and deadlines!

In Michigan, one of the most hotly disputed issues in the lead-up to Election Day is over what to do with late-arriving ballots. And on Friday, a state appeals court delivered a setback to supporters of a more generous timeline. The court reversed a September ruling from a a state court judge, which said that mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 must be counted as long as they are received within two weeks of the election.

The Republican-controlled state legislature had pushed to appeal this decision, and the three appellate judges ruled in their favor, saying that deadlines should be up to the legislature, not the judiciary. Similar absentee ballot extensions in states like Wisconsin and Indiana have also been overturned by higher courts. It’s unclear whether the ruling will be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court — but in the meantime, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is encouraging voters to mail ballots by today to ensure they’re counted. Otherwise, Benson said, ballots should be placed in official drop boxes or hand-delivered to election clerks.

We’re also closely tracking reports of long lines and hours-long waits to vote, which have already occurred a handful of times at early polling places. We can expect more on Election Day, and in Georgia, these long waits could disproportionately affect nonwhite voters. A ProPublica analysis published over the weekend found that polling locations across the state have been cut by nearly 10 percent in recent years even as the eligible voting population grew. The young and diverse Atlanta metro area was particularly hard-hit: It’s home to almost half of Georgia voters but only has but 38 percent of the state’s polling places.

We at FiveThirtyEight are currently furiously tracking down intel on when we can expect to get election results in all 50 states. (The night of Nov. 3? Later?) Here’s an update for you: Ohio will be announcing unofficial results (not including provisional ballots and absentee ballots that arrive Nov. 3 and later) relatively quickly on election night. But then the state won’t report any more results until they are officially certified two weeks later. That means that, if we don’t know who won Ohio on election night, we won’t know until Nov. 17 or 18.

Iain from the United Kingdom: As a Brit, I find it just bizarre that so many changes can be made by the state court system so close to an election. In the U.K., we have the electoral commission and they have to close on the “rules” a chunk of time ahead of the election. Is there an equivalent in the U.S., or are the individual states and governors still able to change the rules right up to the election? (This reader question has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

The short answer is no, there is no federal law or commission that sets a date by which all states must finalize their election procedures.

The long answer is one of FiveThirtyEight’s favorites: It’s complicated. While there are no firm guidelines for states, there is a legal principle, known as the Purcell principle, that says courts ought to avoid issuing orders that change election rules right before an election in order to avoid confusing voters and creating logistical challenges for election officials. Of course, that’s pretty vague! And not all courts will necessarily interpret this principle in the same way.

But we’ve already seen the Supreme Court and some lower courts invoke the Purcell principle this year. For instance, the day before Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, the Supreme Court struck down a district court ruling extending the deadline by which absentee ballots could arrive, stating “that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.” And earlier this week, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district judge’s order that Indiana count absentee ballots that arrive through Nov. 13.

So while there’s no formal cutoff for changes, it’s fair to say that courts have been hesitant to affirm decisions that lead to major rule changes close to elections. This will certainly not be universally true — just this month, a Virginia judge said the state had to extend its voter registration deadline after its online portal crashed on the day of the initial deadline — but it is definitely something to keep in mind as the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in on cases from Alabama, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and perhaps Texas.

With two new rulings in the past 24 hours, the legal battle over North Carolina’s absentee-voting rules has become quite a thicket. I won’t go into the gory details (they are making my head hurt!), but here’s the upshot.

A few weeks ago, North Carolina and voting-rights groups reached a legal settlement that had three main components:

1. It extended the deadline for absentee ballots to be received in North Carolina from Nov. 6 to Nov. 12.
2. It allowed drop boxes to be set up for collecting ballots.
3. It made it easier for voters to fix, or “cure,” mistakes on their absentee ballots.

Multiple lawsuits are now waging over the settlement, but the way things currently stand is this: The first two components of the settlement are on hold before the North Carolina Court of Appeals issues a decision on them, hopefully next week. The third part of the settlement still stands, although a judge did clarify that the more generous ballot-curing process did not mean that voters could dodge the requirement that a witness sign their ballot.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be checking in with election law experts to see which cases they’re watching and which issues they think are most important. If you have questions along those lines, please submit them to our form and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Yesterday, I talked with Daniel Tokaji, the dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, and he had a helpful way of thinking about the types of cases we may see over the next month.

Right now, we are in pre-election litigation season. (It’s a bit of a misnomer, yes, because many people are already voting, but let’s go with it since the real point is these are the fights that happen before Election Day.) These are the cases that Maya previewed on Oct. 15 (“The 7 Election Law Court Cases We’re Watching”). Many of them are about issues like signature requirements and rules for mail-in voting.

But we’ll also probably see a slew of new cases on Election Day itself. In normal years, these cases are generally about the mechanics of in-person voting — what happens if poll workers don’t show up, machines malfunction, etc. Those lawsuits usually aim to extend the hours at polling places to make up for time that was lost due to problems. This year, if there’s any unrest or tension at polling sites (like people showing up with guns, which is a possibility that’s worrying some election officials), that could also be the subject of legal fighting.

And finally, we may see a barrage of post-election legal cases, which would likely revolve around the counting of absentee and provisional ballots. There are plenty of reasons why absentee ballots could be subject to a legal dispute, Tokaji said — for example, if they’re filled out incorrectly. But, he added, it’s important to remember that those fights will probably only happen if the race is close.

Madeleine from Falls Church, Virginia: We’re obviously seeing a massive uptick in early voting (both in person and mail ballots) compared to previous election cycles. Is that at all indicative of greater turnout for the election generally, or are the people voting early people who would under normal circumstances show up in person on Election Day?

Early voting data at this point can’t reveal if turnout will be notably high in 2020. That’s because voters who have already cast ballots weeks before the election are more likely to be people who would vote anyway. That’s probably especially true of Democrats this year, since polls show they are far more likely to vote early than Republicans, but remember many early voters may just be those who would have voted on Election Day, anyway and it’s not a signal that there will be an increase in the number of people who turn out.

But there are some indicators that suggest turnout might be especially juiced in 2020. Gallup found in late September that 71 percent of registered voters were more enthusiastic about voting in 2020 than in past elections — an all-time high since Gallup first asked this question in 1996. There’s also evidence that voter turnout tends to increase in more polarized political environments, and there’s little doubt things are very polarized right now and that voters care deeply about the outcome. In August, the Pew Research Center found that 83 percent of voters thought that it “really matters” who wins the presidential election, higher than in any election going back to 2000.

So polling plus sizable early voting may point to high turnout, but it’s going to take a lot to surpass 2008 presidential turnout. That was the highest turnout in a presidential election since the ratification of the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971 (62 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot). That means about 150 million voters will have to cast ballots in 2020 — 13 million more than in 2016 (2016 wasn’t too far from 2008; 60 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot then).

That may well happen, but we can’t really know until we have most — or even all of the votes counted.

Over the summer, there was a lot of worry that changes at the U.S. Postal Service would have a detrimental effect on an election conducted heavily by mail. A few months later, though, the picture is a bit more nuanced, and dare we say, slightly optimistic?

With less than three weeks until Election Day, there are still many election laws that remain tied up in court — and the legal challenges haven’t stopped coming. Here’s a brief overview of the cases we’re currently watching:

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld a state order that effectively invalidated about 70,000 absentee ballot applications on Thursday. Earlier this summer, three counties mailed out ballot applications with some voter information, such as name and date of birth, already filled out. But this ran counter to an order from the Republican secretary of state, who said that all request forms must be mailed blank. Democrats argued that the secretary of state’s order was unconstitutional, but after the Trump campaign and GOP groups filed an emergency petition, the state’s highest court ruled the order could stand. Affected voters must now fill out new, blank applications or vote a different way.

In Alabama, the secretary of state has said he will appeal part of an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that legalized the use of curbside voting to the Supreme Court.

Two other states expect to see their absentee ballot deadlines decided in the Supreme Court. Republicans in Pennsylvania plan to appeal a state Supreme Court decision that extended the deadline by which mail-in ballots can be received to Nov. 6 from Nov. 3. And in Wisconsin, voting rights groups are appealing directly to the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision that reinstated a Nov. 3 deadline (the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Oct. 8 it was too late to change Wisconsin’s absentee ballot deadline to Nov. 10).

There are also multiple lawsuits regarding the number and placement of ballot drop sites or drop boxes. In both Texas and Ohio, circuit courts upheld orders to limit drop boxes or drop sites to one per county. Last week, the 6th Circuit upheld Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s order limiting each county to only one drop box location. Likewise, this week, the 5th Circuit upheld Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas’s order that allowed counties one ballot drop site each, but one of the groups that brought the court challenge said earlier this week it will appeal to the Supreme Court. And although the federal court upheld Abbott’s order, a county judge ruled earlier today that Abbott’s order violated the state constitution. It was immediately appealed by the state, but there are now two court cases on this question.

And on Wednesday, the New Orleans City Council voted to sue the Louisiana secretary of state for instructing parish election officials that ballots can only be returned to the registrar’s office. The council’s request for a temporary order was granted, and the first hearing is set for Oct. 21. (However, it’s worth noting that Louisiana is one of five states that still requires an excuse to vote absentee. Fear of COVID-19 isn’t considered an excuse, although being at higher risk of the disease, under quarantine or caring for someone in quarantine is.)

I arrived at one of Louisville’s early voting locations, a Marriott hotel, at 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. By 12:55 p.m., I was totally done. I probably could have voted even faster, but I was trying to take in the whole scene, since it is my job to observe and write about the voting process. Counting poll workers and voters there were about 100 people in a ballroom with me — by far the biggest group I have been in since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. The mask-wearing was good (basically everyone had one on). The social distancing, not as good. Some of the poll workers were seated a bit too close to each other (not six feet apart). But overall, it seemed like a pretty safe environment.

All of this to say — everything is not wrong with election administration in America, at least based on my experience, in one city. In fact, Louisville at least right now seems like quite a positive story. The state of Kentucky has not previously had formal early in-person voting or mail-in voting. (I was able to vote absentee in-person in 2018 because I would be out of town on Election Day. I was at FiveThirtyEight headquarters in Manhattan.) But the Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, working with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and local officials, created both an expanded vote-by-mail system and three weeks of early voting this year amid the COVID-19 outbreak. In Louisville, there are four locations for early voting: one in the heavily-white eastern part of the city; another in the heavily-black western part of the city; one downtown, in an area where a lot of people work; and finally a location that is in the center of the city, at the fairgrounds. All four of those locations have absentee ballot drop boxes. You can also drop your absentee ballot off at the two boxes at the office of the county board of elections.

So far, all of that is working well. I visited all four early voting locations on Wednesday afternoon, the second day of early voting in Kentucky. At all four, people told me that the voting process had taken them less than ten minutes. At the county board of elections office, people parked and dropped off their ballots, taking about two minutes.

I am reluctant to draw many conclusions about the voting process in America based on my experience in one mid-sized city (about 760,000 people.) But it’s worth noting a few things. Adams, unlike Republicans in some states, has taken affirmative steps to make it easier to vote. That might just reflect his own views and ideology. That said, Louisville and Kentucky are not particularly electorally-competitive areas. President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are big favorites to win the state, while Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat, is almost certain to win in the Democratic-leaning Louisville area. So the election is not going to be decided by a few hundred or thousand votes, leading to both parties looking to gain an advantage in the voting process and putting Adams under a lot of pressure.

On Wednesday night, we got two big court rulings in North Carolina that might be kind of confusing if you haven’t been following the case closely. Here’s the background: Last month, the North Carolina State Board of Elections and voting-rights groups reached a settlement that extended the absentee-ballot receipt deadline to Nov. 12, set up ballot drop boxes and made it easier for voters to fix mistakes on their absentee ballots.

A federal judge upheld that settlement on Wednesday, but said that the state was interpreting the settlement too liberally. At the center of the dispute: Election officials were allowing ballots with mistakes to count as long as the voter signed an affidavit, even if that mistake was that the ballot was not signed by a witness. The court ruled that an affidavit signature wasn’t enough in that case, and that ballots without a witness signature must be completely recast with one.

This means that an unknown number of voters who submitted ballots without witness signatures will now need to start over and cast a new ballot. Overall, though, this ruling is a loss for Republicans who wanted to invalidate the entire settlement — the fact that the absentee-ballot receipt deadline is now Nov. 12 is a fairly big deal.

However, the case isn’t over yet, as Republicans say they’re willing to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile in Texas, as we alluded to yesterday (though not very precisely, thanks to some readers who gave me a head’s up!) Governor Greg Abbott’s order to limit each county to just one ballot drop box was upheld by a federal panel of judges, meaning densely-packed counties like Harris have just one drop box for anyone who wants to return their ballot this way.

Drop boxes for absentee ballots were always kind of a niche convenience for a small number of voters. Now suddenly they’re a big topic of discussion. Just another way 2020 is unlike any other election.

That’s a great question. And depending on how these ballots are handled, the state GOP could really be shooting itself in the foot. The counties in which these party-furnished boxes have been reported — Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange — are home to some of the few remaining pockets of California Republicans. Orange County was famously the closest thing the party had to a state stronghold until the 2018 midterms; Fresno County is a GOP-leaning swing county (it voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but also sends Republicans Devin Nunes and Tom McClintock to Congress). Meanwhile, the GOP won a special election in the 25th Congressional District, which includes part of L.A. County, earlier this year after losing the seat to a Democratic challenger in the 2018 midterms.

Do we know then what happens to voters who drop their ballots off at these unofficial boxes? You say stunt, Nathaniel, but this sounds like a real problem?

Yeah, Kaleigh, it feels like this is just a stunt to get Democrats on the record against third-party ballot collection, which Republicans can use to their political advantage later. But of course, the real problem is that these drop boxes are labeled as “official” when they are not — and I doubt they are as secure as the official boxes either.

But as Sarah said at the outset of the chat, the California Republican Party copped to having placed more than 50 unofficial ballot dropboxes around the state, labelling them “official.” California’s secretary of state and attorney general sent them a cease and desist letter, but the state party claimed it was perfectly legal and was just a way for the party to practice third-party ballot collection. And a spokesperson for the party said they had no plans to stop using the boxes.

Right, and to follow up on just how strict California’s law on third-party ballot collection is: The ballot must be signed by the voter and the person collecting it for drop off. The person collecting it then has to turn in the ballot within 72 hours. That makes allegations of widespread fraud hard to buy.

Right, the term “ballot harvesting” is a pretty pejorative term, too, and used primarily by Republicans trying to discredit the practice of third-party ballot collection. It conjures up this image of political operatives pulling ballots out of thin air when in reality, it’s just another person dropping off your ballot for you — usually a family member — which is perfectly legal in most states.

It’s also worth understanding what it means to actually have someone else drop off your ballot, or the practice where third parties are allowed to collect and deliver ballots for voters in some states. This CBS story explains it clearly: “In states where the practice is legal, volunteers or campaign workers can go directly to the homes of voters, collect the completed ballots, and drop them off en masse at polling places or election offices.”

So Geoffrey mentioned “ballot harvesting” in his post, and I wanted to flag that this is a relatively new issue for California. Until 2016, the state didn’t allow people other than a voter’s family member to return a vote-by-mail ballot. But the law changed in the 2018 midterms to allow any person to return a vote-by-mail ballot, provided they don’t get paid for it, which did not go well for the California GOP … and Republicans blamed unlimited “ballot harvesting” for the defeat of seven Republican House candidates, so there’s that at play here, too.

Let’s take a step back here, though, and start by going over what drop boxes are. They’re an official receptacle where voters can submit their absentee ballots by hand, rather than sending it through the mail. And they’ve gotten more attention this year as more voters want to vote absentee in order to avoid crowds due to COVID-19, while also avoiding any potential delays at the USPS.

In California, what’s particularly interesting is that Republicans are claiming their private drop boxes are just their version of “ballot harvesting,” or having someone from the party collect completed ballots from voters and then turn them over the election officials — which is legal.

So in California, the GOP has set up these unofficial collection points in churches, gun shops and party offices. But the problem is if you set up drop boxes that claim to be official but don’t have the authority, which is the case for a political party, that could lead to mass voter confusion.

Well, Sarah, Republicans generally speaking, aren’t big fans of drop boxes. And this year, they’re doubling down on them not being secure enough against election fraud. But drop boxes typically are quite secure — most states require them to be staffed or at least monitored by cameras. And the states that used drop boxes before this year (e.g., vote-by-mail states like Washington and Colorado) have not experienced any issues.

So, drop boxes have been in the news a lot recently. Help me understand what’s so controversial about them and then what the heck is happening in California?

Republicans in California are using their own private drop boxes? Is … that how this normally works? 🤔

Implementing a predominantly mail election for the first time can be tricky for election administrators, and sometimes, they screw up. Today we learned that a contractor in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (home of Pittsburgh), mailed incorrect ballots to almost 29,000 people. Thankfully, the problem was caught and replacement ballots will be sent, but this does appear to be part of a pattern — Franklin County, Ohio (home of Columbus), sent the wrong ballots to almost 50,000 voters last week. So this may be a recurring issue.

I’m guessing that’s part of it, Kaleigh, but also, many counties want the extra drop sites, and you’d think the counties would be the ones worried about costs/resources. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Supreme Court takes up this case.

Seems like fraud would be minimal then? So is it just a resources thing (people/money to set these up)?

Texas officials like Gov. Greg Abbott say they’re afraid of the potential for voter fraud. But in Texas, there aren’t drop boxes on a street corner like in Washington or California. They’re drop sites where you have to show ID and sign off your ballot to an election official. It’s a whole to-do.

What is the argument for just one drop site — especially in a state like Texas that has lots of large cities?

Remember how Texas is limiting ballot drop sites (where people can drop off their absentee ballots in person rather than putting them in the mail) to just one per county? Well, the League of United Latin American Citizens is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the limit. Definitely a case to watch.

The election is somehow in 20 days! It’s been a long year and a long election cycle. And we’re almost* to the end. (*Your regular reminder to not overreact to election-night returns this year.) And, yes, people are already voting!

We’ll be here covering it all. And we want to know what questions you have for us about everything, but especially this election and how voting is working this year and how it’s not.

Submit your questions here and we’ll try and answer them on this live blog!

Yeah, Kaleigh, we’ll see if that enthusiasm translates into more lines or other problems in the next few weeks. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it! Thanks, everyone, for chatting! Have an idea for what you’d like us to chat about? Ping us at @538politics!

On the plus side, in spite of all the confusion, changing rules, and the pandemic, there is high enthusiasm from voters to participate in this election, and that’s encouraging. Americans are going to find a way to vote this election, that I’m sure of.

Yeah, and Harris County is the size of Delaware! I thought this was a pretty stunning statistic.

If people don’t have easy access to an in-person drop site, that could result in more ballots getting lost or delayed in the mail.

For sure, but look at Texas where we saw court action in play again just on Monday. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the governor’s directive to only allow one early-voting drop box per county. That means large, populous counties like Harris County, with 4.7 million people, are bound to have long waits regardless.

I’d say it’s probably a combination of factors. There may not have been enough early voting sites, but it was also the first day, so more people than average may have been trying to take advantage of early in-person voting.

The lack of sites may also reflect the general underfunding of our election system, which is a long-standing problem. But with the challenges of running an election during a pandemic, this has made our electoral system’s shortcomings even more apparent.

I think it’s something to watch, and certainly worthy of concern, especially since many people are opting to vote early because they wanted to avoid crowds. As someone from a country where I’ve never had to wait more than 15 minutes to vote, these lines are stunning to me.

Yeah, Kaleigh, I’m glad you brought that up. What do we make of those reports of super long lines (as long as 11 hours!) at certain polling places in Georgia? A serious problem of voter suppression? A first-day-of-early-voting phenomenon that will get better with time?

And for voters who are trying to vote early but in-person, it hasn’t been a cake walk, either. In many jurisdictions such as in Texas and Georgia, only a single voting center is available for early voting, causing hour-long waits in lines of hundreds.

Yeah, Maya, for Election Day being less than three weeks away, courts are still changing election laws a lot. For instance, in South Carolina, the courts kept going back and forth on whether absentee voters needed to get their ballot envelopes signed by a witness. The Supreme Court eventually overturned a lower court and said that a witness signature is required, but that was only after many people had been sent instructions that it wasn’t required.

A large percentage of mail-in ballot rejections involve ballots that arrive late. And this year it’s particularly complicated because there are a number of states whose absentee ballot deadlines are still tied up in court. Wisconsin, for example, briefly switched from a receipt deadline to a postmark deadline (meaning, ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 could still be counted if they arrived within a week of Election Day). But that case has now been appealed to the Supreme Court, and there are similar cases pending in Arizona and Georgia.

Another issue we’ve anticipated is mail-in ballots being rejected. Ballots can be rejected if there’s a problem with them, like the voter forgot to sign, or forgot to fill out the witness’s address. And experts have told us that voters casting a ballot by mail for the first time are more likely to make these mistakes. In North Carolina, a particularly alarming trend: Black voters’ ballots are already being rejected at a much higher rate than white voters’ ballots. Luckily, in that state, voters can fix a mistake and still get their vote counted — but that’s not the case everywhere.

Yeah, but that could be especially impactful this year given how Kaleigh and I found earlier this year that the pandemic has halted voter-registration drives in their tracks.

Well, for starters, we’ve seen some states have technical issues on the last day of voter registration this month. Florida and Virginia had their systems go down for periods of time on what can be an incredibly busy day, which fundamentally affects whether you can vote at all!

However, this is not exactly a new problem — technical issues could arise in any cycle.

OK, time to take this live blog for a spin with our first 🎉 live chat 🎉. We’ll start off pretty broad: As you all know, Americans have actively been voting for multiple weeks now, and they’ll continue to do so until Nov. 3.

But what are some of the problems that have cropped up with voting so far — and what are some potential issues you could see arising, given how the election-law chips are falling?

There have already been numerous court battles over the final deadline for counting a mail ballot postmarked by Election Day, or over how many early in-person voting locations should be required. And because of the continued threat the coronavirus pandemic poses, we expect huge numbers of voters to cast ballots ahead of Election Day to avoid day-of lines.

But be warned: It’s easy to misinterpret early-voting data.

In 2016, we saw how it could mislead pre-election analysis, as some commentators viewed the Democratic tilt of the party registration among early voters in states such as North Carolina as a sign Hillary Clinton would win there; instead, the Election Day vote went heavily for Trump and swamped Clinton’s early-vote edge.

And this year, we have to be even more cautious. First, polls suggest that around 60 to 70 percent of voters may vote by mail or early in-person due to COVID-19 — up from 40 percent in 2016 — which complicates data comparisons to past election cycles.

And second, there’s a large partisan split over when voters plan to cast their ballots, with Republicans far more likely to say they’ll vote in-person on Election Day than Democrats. So that means it will be entirely normal to see far more registered Democrats casting early ballots. And doesn’t necessarily mean Trump is going to lose in a certain state.

Yet, one thing we can say about early voting is that the numbers we do have so far suggest heavy turnout, especially given high levels of voter enthusiasm. So far, at least 13.3 million people have cast early ballots, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. That’s nearly 10 percent of the total presidential votes cast in 2016 — and we’re still about three weeks from the election.

Stay tuned for more updates on early voting and how to make sense of what we’re seeing!

If you haven’t figured out how you’re going to cast your vote yet, FiveThirtyEight has a state-by-state guide to voting in the 2020 election. From registration deadlines to how to request a ballot if you’re voting absentee to when early voting starts, our guide includes all the information you need to make a plan in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Many states’ registration deadlines to vote have already passed, but others are coming up soon, so be sure to check those deadlines ASAP. And for those of you who have already registered and received your ballot, the guide contains helpful information on how to return and track your ballot. (Remember to factor in the time it takes to mail your ballot — if you wait until your state’s deadline to mail it, you could run the risk of your ballot arriving late.) You can also see which states have changed laws and procedures in response to the pandemic. Some, like New Jersey and Maryland, have decided to automatically mail absentee ballots or ballot applications to all voters; others, like New York and Kentucky, have loosened requirements so any voter can request an absentee ballot; and some, including Texas and Indiana, require voters have an excuse to vote absentee (and the pandemic doesn’t count).

Finally, we’re also tracking developments in some states whose laws are facing legal challenges, so keep an eye out for updates to the “what we’re watching” section (though any major rulings will find their way onto this live blog, too). We’re keeping the guide up to date with the latest changes, but if you see something you think is wrong or out of date, shoot us an email: nathaniel.rakich[at]fivethirtyeight.com

The logistics of voting — once the province of only the most committed election nerds — have become a hot topic in 2020. The pandemic has led many states to change their election rules to encourage voting by mail, and as a result a record number of Americans are expected to use a voting method other than the traditional Election Day voting booth.

However, these changes, implemented in the span of just half a year, have caused growing pains. The closure of in-person voting sites has resulted in long lines at those that have remained open. Many people have not had their votes counted because their mail ballots were rejected or didn’t arrive at all. Problems with the U.S. Postal Service have exacerbated concerns that mail ballot deadlines are impossibly tight. And the tsunami of mail ballots could mean it takes longer than ever to learn the results of the election.

Meanwhile, President Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the election, falsely claiming that mail ballots are prone to fraud and opening up a gaping partisan divide in who is likely to vote by mail. He has encouraged his supporters to police in-person polling locations and suggested he will challenge the results in court if he loses.

This story is constantly evolving and spinning off new subplots, so we’ve decided to devote constant coverage to it as well. So today we’re excited to introduce this “reporter’s notebook” for all things election administration (essentially, a slower-than-usual live blog that will run from today until Nov. 3). Here we’ll cover all the developments in our democracy that are too small to write full stories about: new court rulings changing a state’s election laws at the last minute; the latest problems being reported with voting; early voting totals so far and what they mean; and the latest outlook for learning results on election night.

We’ll flag issues we’re watching before they explode into national stories, and we’ll give you the context you need to understand why they’re important. We’ll also answer reader questions about voting (submit them here!) and hold live chats discussing the voting-rights topic du jour, from the battle over drop boxes, to which state makes it the hardest to vote, to the latest rhetoric from Trump.

So bookmark this page and please check back regularly to keep tabs on how “Election Month” is going!