Tens of Millions Vote in Midterms With Few Major Disruptions
Tens of millions of voters cast ballots on Nov. 3 in the midterm elections, and voting went forward without widespread disruption, according to NPR. The elections decide control of Congress. They took place amid concerns about possible interference by the Trump administration.
Election administrators reported common problems on the day. Some poll openings were delayed, and some locations had long lines, poor signs and voting equipment problems.
Flooding in parts of Florida, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah forced local officials to move some polling sites. Officials there also used emergency ballots.
In Westchester County, New York, a ballot scanner problem required voters to hand their ballots to election workers, who scanned them at a later time. Part of the county falls within New York's 17th Congressional District, one of the state's competitive House races.
The Justice Department planned to have about 1,000 monitors at polling places on Election Day. It said it was sending monitors to observe voting in every state. As of the evening of Nov. 3, no interference with voting by those monitors had been reported, NPR said.
The New Mexico secretary of state's office received reports that Justice Department monitors had asked unusual questions and questioned voters in Bernalillo County, the state's most populous county.
Early voting was already heavy before Election Day. As of Oct. 31, tens of millions of ballots had been cast, with early voting running higher than in the last midterms, NPR reported.
Polls had closed in seven states by the time millions of Americans were still casting ballots, according to Reuters.
Rep. Katherine Clark said on Nov. 3 that Democrats were on track to win control of the House. Democrats Roy Cooper, Jon Ossoff and Chris Pappas won key races, and Florida Republicans Ashley Moody and Byron Donalds also won their races, according to The Guardian's live coverage.
Before the vote, President Donald Trump held more than 20 rallies in October to help Republicans keep control of Congress, according to the Associated Press. A judge also barred the federal government from trying to separate ballots in the 2026 midterms, the AP reported.
