Labeled as the most important election of the decade, more than 100 million Americans were set to cast their ballots before polls opened on November 3. This number has surpassed records and likely reduced the number of people who will turn out to vote in person this year.
Double the number
However, the threat remains for issues to arise, as the same dilemmas may happen again this year, just like what it does every Election Day. Some of them are the long lines that force people to wait for hours and voting machines malfunctioning.
Some problems are uniquely 2020 problems, including the threat of the pandemic and the heightened fears law enforcement and election officials have about conflict and intimidation happening at the polls, according to ABC News.
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Even though millions of Americans have already voted early, voting rights groups are still bracing for the possibility of long lines on Election Day after officials shuttered polling places because of the COVID-19 pandemic and potential confusion over the new voting processes in many states this election.
Election Day is also expected to bring thousands of partisan poll watchers into balloting locations, the result of the effort of the Republican National Committee, and President Trump's campaign to deploy thousands of volunteers to look for any voting abnormalities. Democratic poll watchers will be on hand too.
Mail-in ballots may cause a delay
The pandemic has made it a challenge to cast the ballots, as the millions of ballots are expected to lead to a delay in the counting of votes once the polls close, especially in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are considered as the major swing states. The state failed to pass laws for processing absentee ballots before November 3.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said that the country is on edge. However, voters should take comfort in knowing that they will be the ones who would determine the winners of these elections, not any lawyers, and not any politicians, as reported by Independent.Co.
Despite the warnings of the election officials that it may take days to finish counting the ballots, President Trump has claimed that the count is supposed to be completed by Election Night. More of his supporters are expected to vote in person on November 3, while voters for Joe Biden are expected to vote through the mail.
Wisconsin's chief election official, Meagan Wolfe, said that it would likely be on November 4 before the state's unofficial results were reported because of the high number of absentee ballots.
Poll watching
This election is the first presidential contest since 1980 in which the Republican National Committee and the GOP presidential nominee will work together to monitor the polls.
In 2018, a federal judge allowed a consent decree to expire that for years had restricted the RNC's ballot security activities without prior judicial approval, according to Business Insider.
Now that the Republicans are free from court supervision, they have geared up to deploy thousands of volunteers to monitor the polling activities in different states.
In Michigan, a swing state that Trump won back in 2016, a long line of poll watchers waited to check in on November 2 at the TCF Center in Detroit.
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