What voter turnout tells us so far about the midterms The 5-Minute Fix author Amber Phillips is on parental leave, and Washington Post reporter and editor Paige Winfield Cunningham is filling in. Send her a note any time on what you'd like to see in this newsletter. Participation in the 2018 election was the highest ever for a midterm. But Tuesday's elections could break that record. As of Sunday morning, voters had already cast more than 39.2 million ballots, surpassing the record for early voting. It's notable that so many Americans are participating in the democratic process at a time when false claims of election fraud threaten to undermine confidence in it. (Below, we'll address why voters can have more confidence than ever that their votes aren't being manipulated.) The high turnout also undermines allegations by Democrats that new voting laws in places including Georgia and Texas would dampen turnout by making it harder to vote. (President Biden went so far as to dub the Georgia law "Jim Crow 2.0.") Yet the uptick in early voting isn't new. It's a continuation of a trend over the past decade in which most states have expanded the opportunities to cast a ballot ahead of Election Day. The share of ballots cast by mail or at early-voting locations increased from 31 percent to 40 percent between 2014 and 2018 and is expected to be even higher this year. A quick reminder of the state of play: - Republicans seem likely to flip the House. They need to net only five seats to win the chamber, and many more Democratic seats are considered toss-ups than Republican seats.
- The Senate is expected to be close, and we might not know which party wins control until well past election night.
So which party does high turnout favor? Traditionally, the view has been that it's better for Democrats and worse for Republicans, but in recent years this trend hasn't always played out. Voter turnout was massive in 2020, but that spike occurred across Democratic- and Republican-leaning demographics, so it wasn't especially helpful to the Democrats. And in 2016, Black and overall minority voter turnout dipped and White turnout increased slightly, which was bad for Democrats and good for Republicans. This year, polls are finding more voting enthusiasm among Republicans. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 80 percent of Republican-leaning voters and 74 percent of Democratic-leaning voters said they are certain to vote or have already done so. Traditionally Democratic groups such as young voters, Black voters and Latino voters are showing low enthusiasm, according to NPR, which could spell trouble for the party. Black and Latino voters also list inflation and the cost of living as their top concerns, which are issues the GOP holds significant advantages on. What about early voting? Democrats are more likely to vote early than Republicans. This was true in the 2020 election, when Democrats more often mailed ballots or used ballot drop boxes. And it looks like the case this year, too. In the states that have voter registration by party affiliation, 43 percent of the early votes are from Democrats, 34 percent are from Republicans and 23 percent are from unaffiliated or third-party voters. Republicans seem aware of this. GOP officials and candidates in at least three states are trying to get thousands of mail ballots disqualified, prompting charges of voter suppression by Democrats. They've won court battles in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that will result in certain ballots not being counted; another case is playing out in Michigan. Bottom line: Things look good for Republicans, but it's too soon to know for certain. And it may take a while before we know the full scope of how these elections will play out — Georgia's Senate race might not be decided until next month. How paper ballots have made elections more secure Tuesday is the first nationwide test of the voting process in the United States since 2020, when President Donald Trump made the unprecedented — and false — claim that the election was stolen. And despite claims from some GOP candidates, there's more reason than ever to feel confident that votes are being recorded and counted reliably and accurately. One big reason for this is the move back to paper ballots. Electronic voting methods that produce no paper records are vulnerable to hacking and provide no backup if votes appear to be miscounted. States have so overwhelmingly returned to this method that nearly all voters will have their votes recorded on a piece of paper on Tuesday. They provide an important backup in case there are any recounts or suspicions of voting systems being hacked. - Six years ago, more than 22 percent of voters lived in jurisdictions using electronic voting machines with no paper backup, but now less than 5 percent do, according to Verified Voting, a nonprofit group that tracks election technology.
- Sixty-seven percent of election jurisdictions now use hand-marked paper ballots, up from 48 percent in 2016.
Election fraud was already uncommon, even when electronic ballots were widely used. That's partly because elections are conducted locally, run by state and local officials who oversee the process and tabulate results. The use of paper ballots should boost confidence in election security even more. | 
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