▲ Voters enter a polling station in Pflugerville, Texas.
Voting enthusiasm has run high in fiercely contested U.S. Senate battlegrounds that will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Congress.
As in-person voting closed earliest at 6 p.m. in Kentucky and Indiana on the 3rd (local time), early voting ballots counted up to that day approached a total of 60 million.
In particular, the volume of early voting surpassed the level of the midterm elections four years ago across virtually all Senate battlegrounds, The New York Times (NYT) reported.
In Harris County, a populous area in Texas—one of the battleground states—about 180,000 people visited polling stations as of 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
During the 2024 presidential election at the same hour, the turnout was about 200,000.
If the current trend continues, total turnout in Texas could exceed 10 million, surpassing the voter counts from the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections.
In Ohio, another battleground state, turnout in large counties such as Franklin County and Hamilton County also increased significantly compared to the 2022 midterms, nearing the levels seen during the 2024 presidential election.
This is unusual given that midterm voter turnout is typically lower than presidential election turnout.
Georgia, where Senate and gubernatorial races are drawing intense interest, is also expected to record its highest-ever midterm voter turnout, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference.
In Georgia, about 2.8 million people have already completed early voting—the highest ever for a midterm election—and Secretary Raffensperger projected that another 1.2 million will participate on election day.
The record for the highest voter turnout in a U.S. midterm election was set at approximately 120 million in 2018 during the administration of Donald Trump's first term.
Attention is focused on whether this midterm election can break that previous record.
The midterms began at 5 a.m. in the eastern state of Vermont, with polls opening progressively between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. across their respective time zones, and are proceeding relatively smoothly at roughly 100,000 polling stations across 9,000 election jurisdictions nationwide.
Conflict situations such as interference in voting by the Trump administration or the confiscation of ballots, which some had feared, have not yet broken out.
The outlines of each candidate's victory or defeat are expected to begin emerging past 8 p.m. in the eastern region, and accurate results are likely not to be known until late at night at the earliest.
Some setbacks occurred, such as malfunctions found in voting machines in several areas, extended voting hours, and changes to polling locations due to severe weather in some south-central states.
According to NBC, the opening of polling stations was delayed in some county voting places in Pennsylvania and North Carolina due to issues including equipment setup, extending voting closing times by tens of minutes.
According to the NYT, an issue occurred in New York State where some voting machines failed to recognize ballots.
Consequently, voters were instructed to submit their ballots in separate envelopes instead of inserting them into the voting machines.
Additionally, CNN reported that voting was suspended for about 20 minutes after polls opened due to a malfunction in the ballot scanning system at a polling station in Florida.
The issue was resolved after switching the computer system to manual operation, and there are currently no plans to extend voting hours in that county.
The weather in the eastern and western parts of the United States was mostly sunny on this day, but torrential rain-induced floods and tornadoes swept through Florida and some south-central states, disrupting voting.
At least 18 polling stations were relocated in places such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, and 21 polling stations were also moved due to flooding in Florida.
In Virginia and Ohio, scares occurred as hoax calls reporting active shooter threats and bomb threats were made to polling places, prompting police to be dispatched.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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