Midterm voting proceeds with minor delays and weather disruptions

Voting in the 2026 midterm elections proceeded largely without major incident on Tuesday.

Early voting turnout was on pace to exceed the numbers from the previous midterm cycle.

This high volume of early ballots may have contributed to a smoother process at polling places on Election Day.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, described the low number of issues as remarkable.

Hannah Fried, CEO of the voting rights group All Voting Is Local, said the problems observed were standard and resolved quickly.

Weather played a major role in disrupting voting in several regions.

Heavy rains and flash flooding affected parts of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

Election administrators in the Navajo Nation changed several polling locations to accommodate voters.

In San Juan County, Utah, officials allowed voters to cast ballots electronically due to travel difficulties.

Flooding in eight counties in Florida forced last-minute changes to voting sites.

Nancy Zhmendak, a registered Democrat in Riviera Beach, said her usual voting location at a neighborhood clubhouse was flooded.

She noted that residents were using social media to find alternative ways to reach polling places despite the water on the streets. A technical failure delayed vote counting in Westchester County, New York, a suburban area with a competitive House race. Election officials reported that ballot scanners rejected paper ballots after a program update. The issue required staff to place ballots in emergency bags for later counting. Officials assured voters that the ballots remained secure and that voting could continue while the problem was fixed. Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins promised a bipartisan investigation into what he called a debacle. Benjamin Hort, a registered Democrat in the county, chose not to cast a provisional ballot. He planned to return later in the day when he hoped the machines would be working. I will wait as long as I have to, Hort said. You would think they would have tested the machines. Not ideal. In Florida, a safety feature in a new voting system malfunctioned in Broward County. This caused a 20 minute delay at the start of voting. Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott apologized to voters who left before the issue was resolved at 7:20 a.m. Technical delays also extended voting hours at three sites in Pennsylvania and five in North Carolina. The Department of Justice monitored polling places across all 50 states. This was the largest monitoring effort in the history of the agency. A lawsuit filed by the Justice Department to block the certification of Alaska’s Senate results was dismissed by a federal judge on Sunday. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a push by the administration to force California to set aside thousands of ballots. A federal judge also ordered the administration to stop sending lists of alleged noncitizens to election officials. The Justice Department won a smaller victory in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court paused a ruling that had barred the department from intimidating election officials in California. The Trump administration warned that no armed federal officials would guard the polls. None of the steps most feared by Democrats had occurred by Tuesday afternoon. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a warning on X stating that the agency would track, arrest, and prosecute noncitizen voters. The agency did not return a request for comment regarding the post. President Donald Trump said he would accept the results if they were honest. He made this statement one week before Election Day.