Voters go to the polls for the first time as early voting starts in four states with long lines and one voter saying 'I don't trust the postal service'
Voters lined up in Minnesota to cast ballots on Friday ahead of campaign trips to the state by President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, as early voting began there and in three other states ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Some 44 people cast ballots in the first 30 minutes that the city of Minneapolis' lone polling center was open, in a state Trump narrowly lost in 2016 but has targeted as a possible pickup this time.
Voters in Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming also began casting in-person ballots on Friday. In Virginia, elections officials in Fairfax and Arlington counties in the Washington suburbs reported heavy turnout, with lines out the door.
But it was more than just interest in the hotly contested election that drove voters to stand in long lines. Some have their doubts about whether the Postal Service can carry out its mission to deliver mail-in ballots.
A man wears a shirt supporting U.S. President Donald Trump while waiting in a socially distant line to vote on the first day of early voting for the 2020 U.S. presidential election at the Fairfax County Government Center in Fairfax, Virginia, U.S., September 18, 2020. Long lines of voters turned up in Virginia and other early voting states
'I don't trust the mail right now, that's why,' Virginia voter Jim O'Conner told CNN. 'If I've got to stand here all day, I'm going to vote today,' he said, while wearing a protective mask. Some waited as long as two hours to vote amid multi-day early voting opportunities.
Some voters in Minnesota said they were anxious to get an early jump on the process, or to avoid potential crowds on Election Day.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended U.S. election traditions. It has sharply curtailed both candidates' campaign travel and is expected to bring a surge of early and mail voting as Americans seek to reduce their exposure to crowds that can spread the disease.
'I just wanted to come get it done,' said Jason Miller, 33, a painter who was in line before the site opened to cast a vote for Biden. He said he could not wait to cast a vote against Trump.
'I don't trust the mail right now,' said Virginia voter Jim O'Conner
Voters wait in line to cast their ballot at an early voting location in Fairfax, Virginia on September 18, 2020. - Early in-person voting for the 2020 general election kicked off on September 18, 2020 in Virginia weeks before Election Day
A voter waits to be handed her ballot as people wait over four hours for early voting at Fairfax County Government Center, Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, in Fairfax, Va.
The lines come about doubts about the Postal Service and the president's attacks on mail-in ballots
Old US Mail boxes sit stacked awaiting refurbishing at Hartford Finishing, Inc., in Hartford, Wisconsin, USA, 19 August 2020
President Trump attacked mail-in ballots at the White House again on Friday
'I was a little inspired to come here the first day,' he said. 'In fact, probably 3-1/2 years ago I thought I would be here the first day I could.'
Steve O'Rourke, 65, who came with a son who has to leave the country on a work trip, said he decided to vote early in person rather than by mail partly out of concern whether a mail-in vote would be counted.
'I like to make sure my vote is counted the day of the election,' said O'Rourke, who also supported Biden. 'I just wanted to make sure I get my vote in.'
All of the voters lined up in Minneapolis wore masks to help protect against the spread of the coronavirus.
Margie Rukavina, 72, said she was 'revved up' to vote for Biden but also was concerned about voting on Election Day given health concerns.
'We want to come early to avoid a super-spreader event, like our president is so happy to do,' she said. Trump has been criticized for holding crowded campaign rallies, often with people not wearing masks.
The Republican president trails Biden in national opinion polls but is trying to make up ground in Minnesota, which he lost by about 1.5 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, while winning neighboring Wisconsin.
Recent opinion polls have given Biden a comfortable lead in Minnesota. The poll-tracking website RealClearPolitics showed Biden up by an average of 10.2 points as of Friday.
Biden's polling advantage underscores the extent to which the current electoral map favors the former vice president. He leads in all three former industrial 'Rust Belt' states that Trump flipped from the Democratic column on his way to victory in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally at an airport in Bemidji, Minnesota, in the evening.
In the afternoon, Biden toured a union carpenter training center in Hermantown, a suburb of the Lake Superior port city of Duluth, where he painted a grim picture of the economic situation in Minnesota's iron ore mining region, saying the coronavirus has driven up unemployment figures.
He blamed Trump for the sustained economic downturn, arguing the president has done little to contain the health crisis.
'Trump has given up on even pretending to do his job,' Biden said.
Minnesota was the flashpoint for a national reckoning on race relations, when George Floyd, a Black man, died after a white Minneapolis policeman kneeled on his neck for minutes even after he appeared to lose consciousness.
The killing sparked widespread civil unrest that has lasted for months and further rattled a nation already besieged by the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 196,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.
Trump has responded to the demonstrations by vowing to maintain 'law and order' while portraying many of the protesters as far-left radicals who would be further empowered by a Biden victory.
Biden has denounced the violence at some protests while expressing support for the protesters' objections to racism and police brutality. He has blamed Trump's divisive rhetoric for inflaming the situation
A majority of President Donald Trump's supporters plan to cast their ballot on Election Day, while about half of Joe Biden's backers plan to vote by mail, a sign of a growing partisan divide over how best to conduct elections in the United States.
Overall, 39% of registered voters say they will vote by mail, well above the 21% who say they normally do so, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The rise is skewed toward backers of the former vice president, 53% of whom plan to vote by mail. Fifty-seven percent of Trump's supporters say they'll vote in person on Nov. 3.
Fifty-four percent of voters say they will vote before polls open on Election Day. In 2016, roughly 42% of voters did so.
Trump for months has denigrated mail voting, and Democrats have expressed concern about postal delays that could keep such ballots from being counted. The poll finds ebbing enthusiasm for mail voting: Only 28% of Americans say they would favor their state holding elections exclusively by mail, down from the 40% who said so in April as the coronavirus pandemic was first spreading in the U.S. and before Trump launched his anti-mail campaign.
Support for states allowing voters to cast an absentee ballot without requiring a reason is higher, but also down since April, from 56% to 47%.
Sherry Santiago, 55, of Palm Bay, Florida, is disabled and cannot drive. The Democrat said she almost lost her chance to vote in 2016 because she couldn't get a lift to the polling place and she's happy to sign up for a mail-in ballot this year.
In this Sept. 8, 2020 photo, voting booths are kept socially distant at the Chesterfield, N.H. polling site. A majority of President Donald Trump's supporters plan to cast their ballot on Election Day, while about half of Joe Biden's backers plan to vote by mail. That's according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that finds 54% of voters say they will vote before polls open on Nov. 3. (Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP)
'I don't want to take a chance of missing it,' Santiago said of the election. 'I have total confidence in voting by mail. I don't worry there will be a problem.'
But Michelle Harman, 44, a Republican who works in the oil and gas industry in Artesia, New Mexico, plans to vote in person on Election Day.
'This year more than any other, there's a lot of gray area about what could happen to your vote,' said Harman, who said she didn't question voting by mail in 2016 when she was out of town.
Traditionally, voting by mail has not been a partisan issue. Until recently, Republicans were more likely to do so than Democrats, because older voters have tended to vote by mail more often than younger voters.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended earlier this year voting by mail as an alternative to face-to-face interactions at polling places, which could pose a risk of coronavirus infection. States have scrambled to adjust to an expected surge in advance voting, with nearly three dozen changing their mail or absentee voting rules in response to the pandemic.
The president has since tried to fan skepticism of mail voting, baselessly claiming that its widespread use will lead to fraud. Trump warned that mail voting could lead to so many people voting that 'you´d never have a Republican elected in this country again.' He condemned on Thursday the plan in 10 states to proactively send mail-in ballots to registered voters, claiming without evidence it means the result of November's election would never be accurately determined.
Studies of past elections have shown voter fraud to be exceedingly rare. In the five states that regularly send ballots to all voters, there have been no major cases of fraud or difficulty counting the votes.
The poll found that 33% of Democrats, but just 12% of Republicans, favor mail-only elections. That's a decline across the board from April, when 47% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans backed the idea. Seventy-two percent of Democrats, but just 25% of Republicans, favor no-excuse absentee voting.
In swing states like Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have far outpaced Republicans in requesting mail-in ballots so far this year.
John Mohr, 58, who works at a Dollar General store in Wilmington, North Carolina, asked for a mail-in ballot, but he plans to drop it off at his local elections office. He's seen videos on Facebook saying - falsely - that mail-in ballots are labeled by party, tipping off postal workers who could throw them out before they reach the elections office.
'I don't trust the postal service and I sure don't trust Democrats,' Mohr said. Trump in North Carolina this month called for his supporters to vote twice - once by mail and once on Election Day - to ensure their vote is counted, which would be illegal. The president now urges supporters voting by mail to check at their polling place whether their ballot was received, but Mohr said he doesn't want to deal with social distancing rules.
'I don't want to stand there with 50 different rules,' Mohr said.
The poll shows only 34% of Americans have great confidence in the U.S. Postal Service, following a summer of controversy over slowed service resulting from cuts made by Trump's appointee. Still, 49% say they have some confidence.
Democrats suspect the cuts are an effort to sabotage mail voting, and Trump himself said he'd be happy if the post office got less money to stop Democratic efforts to expand that method of voting.
Robert Schott, a Republican, plans to vote in person because his polling place is 500 yards from his home in Cranford, New Jersey, and is rarely crowded. 'It's easier than going to the post office,' said Schott, 62.
Schott, who dislikes Trump and does not know who he will vote for, spoke as he looked at the ballot that just arrived by mail. Though Trump has criticized that practice, Schott sees nothing wrong with it. Nor does he distrust the postal service.
'If they can't handle 50 million ballots but they can handle 2 billion Christmas cards, c'mon,' Schott said.
Christopher Roquemore, 47, a Democrat in Montgomery, Alabama, will vote early in person because he's volunteering as a poll worker on Election Day. 'I figure as long as I wear a mask and I wash my hands and do everything I'm supposed to do, it'll be as safe as going into a grocery store,' he said.
But his parents, who live across the street, will be voting by mail.
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