John Ehlke | West Bend Daily News via AP Police in West Bend, Wis., said a knife-wielding intruder entered a public library serving as a polling station and asked staff to “stop voting.” “Voting was suspended for just over 30 minutes while the scene was secured and an initial investigation was conducted,” police wrote in a media alert on their public Facebook page. A 38-year-old man was taken into police custody “without incident” and there were no injuries, according to West Bend authorities. “All library staff, election officials and citizens are safe and the polling place has reopened,” the statement said. Across the country, election authorities are bracing for the possibility of violence in a highly polarized environment. Wisconsin has a competitive Senate race this cycle, with incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson defending his seat against the state’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. “The incident remains under investigation and charges will be pending. There is no further threat to the community,” police wrote. —Christina Wilkie
Most midterm voters feel negatively about Supreme Court’s abortion decision, NBC exit poll finds
Political candidate and referendum posters are placed along a main street on November 2, 2022 in Shelburne, Vermont. A sign in favor of Article 27 would enshrine a woman’s reproductive rights in the Vermont state constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down 50 years of abortion rights as unconstitutional. The US midterm elections will be held on November 8, 2022. Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images Most midterm voters feel negatively about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to an NBC exit poll. The poll shows that 21% of voters nationally are “dissatisfied” and 39% are “angry” about the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, while only 16% are “enthusiastic” and 21% are “satisfied” with recent opinion on abortion. In these midterms, 27% of voters say abortion is the most important issue to them, making it second only to inflation, which 32% of voters cited as their top issue in Tuesday’s midterms. Of those polled, 60% of voters nationally believe abortion should be legal and 36% believe it should be illegal, with 52% trusting the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party to get it right issue of access to abortion. — Jack Stebbins
Michigan secretary of state denies Trump claims of ‘bad’ absentee ballots
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson hit back at former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the state’s absentee voting process. “The absentee ballot situation in Detroit is REALLY BAD,” Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social. “People turn up to Vote only to be told ‘sorry, you’ve already voted.’ Benson accused Trump of “inciting lies” and “encouraging political violence” in Michigan. The Michigan Office of Elections has assisted the Detroit clerk’s office in resolving reported problems with electronic poll books, which are used to confirm that voters are registered and have not already voted absentee, said Aneta Kiersnowski Crisp, spokeswoman for the department. of Michigan. Condition. Poll workers gave each voter a numbered ballot after confirming each was registered and no absentee or absentee ballots had been issued, Crisp explained. “Occasionally this morning some electronic ballots showed an error message saying that the number on the ballot at the polling station was the same as the number on an absentee ballot that had already been cast,” he added. “When that happened, the voters were properly checked against a backup paper list and ballots cast by the voters were issued. Those ballots will be counted.” — Chelsea Cox
Inflation, abortion top concerns among midterm voters, NBC News exit poll finds
A voter casts a ballot in the midterm elections at a polling place in Marietta, Georgia, November 8, 2022. Bob Strong | Reuters Inflation and abortion were at the forefront of voters’ minds as they cast the midterm elections, according to an NBC News exit poll. Asked to choose between five policy issues, 32% of US respondents said inflation played the most important role in deciding their vote, the survey found. The second largest group of voters, 27%, chose abortion. Meanwhile, 12% of voters chose crime, 12% chose gun policy and 10% chose immigration. Rising inflation during the first half of President Joe Biden’s term has contributed to a difficult environment for Democrats as the party tries to defend its slim majorities in the House and Senate. Republicans have tried to capitalize on rising prices in their bid to flip both chambers. Meanwhile, Democrats have sought to mobilize voters worried about the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. — Jacob Pramuk
Judge extends voting hours in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania amid reports of paper shortages
Voters were turned away from dozens of polling places in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, after those locations ran out of ballot printing paper. The reported shortage prompted a judge to extend election hours in Lucerne by two hours, until 10 p.m. ET. Lucerne has a population of over 326,000 people. “Voters in Luzerne County, through no fault of their own, have been disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote,” Judge Lesa Gelb of the county’s Court of Common Pleas wrote in a one-page order extending voting hours. Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Amy Gulley told CNBC in an email, “A judge extending voting hours because of problems at the polls is by no means unheard of.” About 44 county polling places were affected by the shortage, Gulley said — nearly a quarter of the county’s polling places. — Kevin Breuninger and Jack Stebbins
Maricopa County, Arizona voting machine malfunctions resolved
Bill Gates, Chairman of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, speaks about voting machine malfunctions at the Maricopa County Elections and Registration Center on November 8, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona. John Moore | Getty Images Officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, said they have identified a solution to problems seen in a number of machines that record paper ballots at some polling places. The announcement came hours after officials said some machines were spitting out every fourth or fifth vote on the affected machines. “Maricopa County has identified the resolution to the ranking issues at approximately 60 Vote Centers,” the Maricopa County Elections Administration Center said in a statement. “County technicians changed the printer settings, which appears to have resolved this issue,” the statement said. “It appears that some of the printers did not produce dark enough timing marks on the ballots. This solution worked in 17 locations and technicians deployed across the county are working to resolve this issue in the remaining locations,” he added. Maricopa, the fourth largest county in the US, has 223 polling places. Before the fix was announced, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said that despite the problems, “Everybody’s still voting.” “We don’t believe that anyone has been disenfranchised because no one has distanced themselves,” Gates said. He also said Maricopa has a “strong level of confidence” that rejected ballots, which were placed in separate bins at polling places, will be successfully captured by the machine at the central sorting site in Phoenix. If that process doesn’t work, a team consisting of one person from the Democratic Party and one person from the Republican Party will deliver a copy of a particular ballot, which will then be tabulated. —Dan Manganese
Cyberattack Hits Champaign County, Illinois Servers, Blocking Some Election Services
Denver Judge of Elections Danielle Puscatelli directs the ballot sorting system at the Denver Elections Department on November 8, 2022 in Denver, Colorado. Michael Ciaglo | Getty Images Champaign County, Illinois, said it was the target of a cyberattack on Election Day, and an official with the federal cybersecurity agency CISA said it was aware of the matter. The Champaign County Clerk’s Office stated “connectivity issues and computer server performance [were] are affected’ and ‘believes these are due to cyber attacks on the network and servers’. “Last month the Champaign County Clerk’s website was targeted by repeated D-DOS attacks,” the clerk said on his verified Facebook page. None of the attacks were successful, however, and “no data or information has been compromised and the election is secure.” Champaign County is home to approximately 200,000 people. “These cyber attacks are a strategic and coordinated effort to undermine and destabilize our democratic process. They are intended to discourage you from voting. Please do not fall victim to this,” the official’s office said. It was unclear who was behind the attacks. But an official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal government’s main agency tasked with detecting and preventing cyberattacks, said the agency was aware of the apparent attack and would follow up with officials in Champaign County. US intelligence and cybersecurity agencies are on alert during these midterm elections for any signs of foreign efforts to target voting infrastructure or undermine confidence in election results. —Christina Wilkie
Trump is spreading misinformation to sow ‘fear and mistrust’ in Arizona midterms, state elections official says
Former US President Donald Trump speaks during a midterm election rally in Miami, Florida, US, November 6, 2022. Marco Bello | Reuters An Arizona election official accused former…
