In-Person Voting Begins in 3 States Today

The Democratic and Republican national conventions are just a memory, the first and perhaps only debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is in the bag, and election offices are beginning to send out absentee ballots. Now come the voters. Friday is the start of early in-person voting in Virginia, South Dakota, and Minnesota, the home state of Harris' running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. The first ballots being cast in person come with just over six weeks left before Election Day on Nov. 5. About a dozen more states will follow with early in-person voting by mid-October.

• 'I want to see high turnout and low drama.' "If I could wave a magic wand in this room right now, I would wish for two things: Between now and November 5th, I want to see high turnout and low drama," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said Thursday. Simon also serves as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

• Security beefed up. Across the country, election directors are beefing up security to keep workers and polling places safe while also ensuring that ballots and voting procedures won't be tampered with. Officials and ordinary poll workers have been targets of harassment and even death threats since the 2020 presidential election. Federal authorities are investigating the origin of suspicious packages that have been sent to or received by elections officials in more than 15 states in recent days, including Virginia.
• Election Day will still be busy. In Virginia. early in-person voting has long been popular in the city of Chesapeake, especially during presidential elections, said its elections director, Mary Lynn Pinkerman. She expects early voting to help ease the crowds on Nov. 5, but also cautioned that Election Day voting "is certainly not a thing of the past" and that "voters could still encounter wait times."

• 'We call them our cicada voters.' Fairfax County Elections Director Eric Spicer said roughly a third of local voters came to the polls on Election Day during the 2020 presidential election, while the rest voted by mail or early and in-person. "We call them our cicada voters who come out every four years," he said, adding that he expects this year's presidential race to drive heavy turnout in his northern Virginia county.
• Ballot measures expected to boost turnout. In South Dakota, the top election official in Minnehaha County, the state's most populous, is planning for an 80% overall turnout. Extra seasonal workers began Monday, and an early voting area was set up in the county administration building in Sioux Falls. County Auditor Leah Anderson said the presidential race and several statewide ballot measures—including one that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and another to legalize recreational marijuana—will attract voters.
• Postal issues. Many early voters might opt for early in-person balloting instead of mail-in absentee ballots to ensure their votes get counted, given the ongoing struggles of the US Postal Service. State and local election officials from across the country last week warned that problems with mail deliveries threaten to disenfranchise voters, and they told the head of the system that it hasn't fixed persistent deficiencies despite their repeated attempts at outreach.

(More Election 2024 stories.)