Americans nationwide cast ballots on the last day of US elections

Election Day 2024 arrived on Tuesday mdash with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots Those include record numbers in Georgia North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winnerThe early turnout in Georgia which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections has been so robust mdash over 4 million voters mdash that a top official in the secretary of states office said the big day could look like a ldquoghost townrdquo at the pollsAs of Monday Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast mdash slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlierThats driven partly by Republican voters who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats longstanding advantage in the early voteDespite long lines in some places and a few hiccups that are common to all elections early inperson and mail voting proceeded without any major problemsThat included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene State and local election officials benefiting from changes made by the Republicancontrolled legislature pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages lack of water and washed out roadsBy the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday over 44 million voters mdash or nearly 57 per cent of all registered voters in the state mdash had cast their ballots As of Monday turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59 per cent of registered voters state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell saidBrinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricanehit counties an inspiration to us allrdquoBesides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the OregonWashington border Authorities there were searching for the person responsibleThe absence of any significant widespread problems has not stopped Trump the Republican nominee or the RNC which is now under his sway from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period a possible prelude to challenges after Election DayHe has mischaracterised an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was ldquocaught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms all written by the same personrdquo The investigation is into registration applications there is no indication that ballots are involvedIn Georgia Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day votes that are allowed under state law A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekendTrump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data including from Republican secretaries of state Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation a significant disincentiveOne case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballotThis is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power That climaxed with the violent January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to ldquofight like hellrdquoEven now a solid majority of Republicans believe Trumps lie that Biden was not legitimately elected despite reviews audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Bidens win A survey last month from The Associated PressNORC Centre for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more sceptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this yearSeeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirementsOn the last weekend before Election Day Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night before all the ballots are countedVice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trumps tactic of casting doubt on elections The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people ldquothat if they vote their vote wont matterrdquo Instead she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the sameThrough four years of election lies and votingrelated conspiracy theories local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bulletproof glassWhile there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation In the final weeks US intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing statesOn the eve of Election Day they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations including in ways that could incite violence and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been castJen Easterly the nations top election security official urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about electionsldquoThis is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever beforerdquo she said ldquoWe cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracyrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the 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