Across the country, Americans responded to two years of attacks on the public’s faith in the democratic process in the most mundane of ways on Tuesday: They voted.
Washington Post: Voting was relatively smooth. Now comes the counting.
11.8.2022 / By Rosalind S. Helderman, Aaron C. Davis and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
Washington Post: Voting was relatively smooth. Now comes the counting.
As night fell, election officials turned their focus to the next test of the resilience of the system: counting the vote, often at facilities newly encircled by barriers and police patrols, including a troop on horseback and a circling helicopter at a counting station in Phoenix.
But as the evening wore on, election officials reported that the tabulating was going smoothly as well. Threats of raucous protests and partisan challengers intent on interfering with the process had not materialized, they said. They cautioned that the process will continue for days and could turn tense in close contests.
Overall, however, officials and voting advocates said Tuesday felt remarkably normal — with only the usual smattering of mechanical issues and routine human errors but no systemic problems and, blessedly, no violence. …
A polling location at a school in Kenner, La., had to be moved Tuesday after a bomb threat was called in to a Jefferson Parish campus. But it was unclear whether the bomb threat, the second in the past week, was related to voting, authorities said.
But Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for Common Cause, said late Tuesday that monitors were relieved by how quiet the day had been.
“I am happy to report that today has been relatively quiet on the political violence front,” she told reporters late Tuesday. “We were absolutely prepared for more significant incidents, but they simply have not come to fruition.”