HOW AMERICA IS VOTING AND COUNTING
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent

Alabama, first in the roll call of states, also was the first to vote this year, kicking off in-person voting for the general election on Sept. 9.

That opened up a voting process complicated by a pandemic and clouded by fear of problems at the polls. Here’s what we know about how this will work:

Early in-person voting

• Some form of in-person voting is underway now in most states. That includes in-person absentee voting, which may require an excuse by voters, as well as “early voting,” which usually does not. 

• Surveys, including the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, indicate Democrats overwhelmingly plan to vote early or by mail and, in contrast, a majority of Republicans plan to vote in-person on Election Day.  

Voting by mail

• According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, nine states and the District of Columbia are automatically sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. 

• Twenty-seven states have “no excuse” mail voting.

• Eleven states have updated their absentee requirements to include COVID-related excuses. 

• Three states — Indiana, Louisiana and Texas — require a specific rationale for absentee voting by mail, such as an illness or other reason for confinement, that has not been expanded to take into account the coronavirus pandemic.

When mail-in ballots must arrive

• According to CNN, the 50 states are close to evenly split on whether ballots must arrive by Election Day.

• 26 states require mail-in ballots to arrive by Nov. 3.

• 24 states count ballots that arrive on later dates, so long as they are postmarked no later than Election Day. 

• Pennsylvania is among the latter group. That state can count ballots that arrive before 5 p.m. on Nov. 6 thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court deadlock, which essentially left intact a lower court ruling that supported Pennsylvania’s plan. 

• States that will count late ballots include some heavyweights in the Electoral College: California, with 55 electoral votes, Texas with 38, Illinois and Pennsylvania with 20 each and North Carolina with 15. 

Total vote so far

• A whopping 31 million votes have already been cast in-person or by mail, according to the Elections Project run by Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida.  (No, not soft rock genius Michael McDonald.)

• This is a large number for this point in the election. The early vote so far this year is about 23 percent of all the votes cast in 2016.

• But early and mail voting has not yet surpassed that of 2016, which the federal government estimated at 57.2 million, or roughly 40 percent of all votes cast. 

How votes will be counted

• Forty-six states and the District of Columbia can begin counting or pre-processing ballots before Election Day, according to research by The New York Times. Pre-processing can include verifying signatures, opening envelopes and flattening ballots to get them ready for tabulation.

• Two significant battleground states cannot begin processing ballots until Election Day: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

• What does this mean for election night? The ability of most states to begin processing mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day could help them count more votes by election night. But only if processing goes well.  

• Rules in several states that prevent them from starting early — and that accept ballots after Election Day — mean that  it could still take days to determine a winner in the presidential race. 

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded there was a “blue shift” in each of the last four elections, meaning that ballots counted after Election Day pushed vote totals in Democrats’ direction.

FIVE STOPS ON THE NEWSHOUR 2020 MAP
By NewsHour Politics Team

In two weeks, the long strange trip of the 2020 presidential race will reach its destination -- Election Day.  In these final days, we at Here’s the Deal are transforming our usual Five Stories into a more focused tool. We eschew self-promotion. But, as a group of reporters, we have traveled the country (literally and virtually) covering the election and want to map that out for our readers.

Consider pulling over for these five stops on our 2020 elections map:

West. How the pandemic has complicated voting access for millions of Native Americans. By Candice Norwood. Often distant from election centers, Native Americans who live on reservations or the Western Plains are finding new voting access issues in the pandemic.  The thoughtful Candice Norwood raises a list of concerns, from health to transportation. 

Southwest. Limits on drop-off sites have some Texans worried about voter suppression. By Daniel Bush. Our intrepid senior politics reporter Daniel Bush went to Texas and documented an election controversy: The squeeze on the number of places to drop off votes.

South. Trump’s struggles in the suburbs put North Carolina in play for Biden. By Daniel Bush. In the Tarheel State, Dan found counties which were once conservative stand-bys are becoming more moderate.

Northeast. Maine Sen. Susan Collins faces the challenge of her political career from Sara Gideon. By Lisa Desjardins and Matt Loffman. The Pine Tree State is holding one of the most discussed, but possibly one of the least understood, high-profile Senate races in the country. In purple parts of Maine, we found a contest centered on local experience and personal passions.

Nationally. Voters expect intimidation at the polls. But they’re voting in record numbers. By Laura Santhanam. An excellent byline to watch, Laura covers health and data-driven stories for Newshour and is our polling coordinator. In this piece, she looks at a remarkable response in our latest survey: Two-thirds of voters expect some form of intimidation at the polls meant to block people from casting their ballots. 

#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Kate Grumke, @KGrumke
Politics producer

On this day in 1973, a series of officials resigned after President Richard Nixon ordered them to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, an event that is now known as the Saturday Night Massacre. An official did finally fire Cox, and as a hint, that official went on to be nominated to the Supreme Court, although the Senate rejected his nomination.

Our question: Who fired Archibald Cox?

Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: Who was president during the longest Supreme Court vacancy in U.S. history?

The answer: John Tyler and James Polk.

This vacancy was so long, this is a trick question. Between April of 1844 and August of 1846, after Justice Henry Baldwin died, President Tyler was unable to fill the vacancy. When President Polk took office, he had two failed nominations before Robert Cooper Grier was confirmed to fill the seat.

Congratulations to our winner: Priscilla Smith!!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.