Comment on Meet Some “Poll Observers” Who Are at One of Georgia’s Tabulation Centers

Ohio voters defeated a major ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have ended partisan gerrymandering in the state and curbed the lopsided majorities Republicans hold in the state legislature and US House delegation. The measure, known as Issue 1, was voted down with 54 percent of the vote. Republicans aggressively used their power to thwart a measure that seemingly had the support of a large majority of the state’s voters.

The first state to ban abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade just became the first state to have a near-total abortion ban reversed by popular vote. The people of Missouri voted on Tuesday to create a constitutional right to “reproductive freedom”—defined as the ability to make and carry out one’s own decisions about abortion, birth control, and health care during pregnancy—approving Amendment 3 by almost 54 percent of the vote as of 11:30 p.m.

It started with Georgia: a handful of bomb threats sent to polling locations in heavily Democratic areas. Two polling sites in Union City outside Atlanta, where the population is nearly 90 percent Black, were temporarily shut down. Georgia officials, citing federal law enforcement, named Russia as the culprit, as the threats had come from that nation’s email domains. As Election Day went on, the threats kept coming, causing polls to close and evacuate for short periods.

As Georgia vote counters page through the absentee and mail-in ballots, a few folks seated nearby who self-identify as “poll observers” are watching closely. A new election law in Georgia permitted anyone designated by an “independent candidate, nonpartisan candidate, a political party, or political body” to gain more access to voting centers and tabulation sites.

In a victory for abortion rights advocates, New Yorkers just voted to enshrine extensive anti-discrimination protections into their state constitution—permanently insulating the rights of pregnant people, abortion seekers, and the LGBTQ community, among others, from changing political winds. Proposal 1 is one of 10 ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights that went before voters on Tuesday.

Florida’s six-week abortion ban will remain the law of the land, as an abortion rights constitutional amendment failed Tuesday night. With 91 percent of the vote tallied as of 9:20 p.m., support for Florida’s Amendment 4 hovered around 57 percent, according to Associated Press projections—shy of the 60 percent threshold required to pass.