(MENAFN- The Conversation) With control of congress and statehouses at stake, voters across the nation headed to the polls on Election Day 2022. That was after had already voted early or by mail. The Conversation asked four scholars to give us their initial observations on the voting, in an election whose outcome may be be determined by – and whose full results will take days to know.
Becky White, a Mesa County election specialist, lifts a box of ballots cast during the midterm election on Nov. 8, 2022, in Grand Junction, Colo. What really influences an election
Jeffrey Lazarus, Georgia State University
When people talk about elections, they frequently focus on how issues and events, as well as candidates' attributes, affect who wins and loses:“He's such a wooden speaker!”“She's soft on crime!” However, the most important factors influencing elections are mostly out of candidates' control.
Political insiders and scholars call these“ ”: the state of the economy and the approval rating of the president. Together, they set the stage for everything else that happens in an election.
In 2022, the fundamentals have been running pretty strongly in Republicans' favor. First, President Joe Biden is a Democrat and pretty unpopular, with . Second, even though the economy is pretty healthy by some measures, , most headlines are . When you combine an unpopular president with a shaky economy, it's a recipe for the president's party – this year, the Democrats – to do poorly at the polls.
Even when two candidates of the same party run in the same state and one does better than the other, systematic factors, not their positions or campaign strategies, usually explain the difference. For example, in Georgia, where I live and , Democrats and are running for governor and U.S. senator, respectively. The results aren't in yet, but doing significantly better in his race in hers. Assuming that bears out, what's the reason behind the difference?
Raphael Warnock, the Democratic candidate for Georgia's Senate seat, and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, together in November 2020. It's not because Warnock ran a good campaign and Abrams didn't. Rather, three factors are helping Warnock but not Abrams, and all three are out of their control.
First, , while Abrams is a challenger; incumbents fare better than challengers. Second, Warnock's opponent, ; Abrams' opponent, , has kept clear of any major financial or personal problems. Third, the fact that Abrams is a woman makes a difference; face more difficult electoral environments. Factors like voter stereotypes and increased media scrutiny result in female candidates' getting about less than similar male candidates.
Most of the time, the story lines voters tend to focus on – the issues that are important to us or the candidates we love or hate – have much less influence over the outcomes of elections than many give them credit for.
A voter casts her ballot on Nov. 8, 2022, in Atlanta. Mail-in voting remained secure, despite concerns
, Connecticut College; , Mississippi State University
A voter displays a ballot when arriving at a voting center in Los Angeles on Nov. 8, 2022. Days before this year's midterm election, of challenges to thousands of mail-in ballots in state races that may determine control of the U.S. Congress.
In Pennsylvania, election officials should not count mail ballots missing a date on the outer envelope. And a judge blocked a request from the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Michigan, Kristina Karamo, that be thrown out.
These challenges to mail-in voting are echoes of that boiled over during the contentious, COVID-19-tinged 2020 presidential election. The 2022 election cycle featured a about the security of mail-in voting and the integrity of .
It is true mail ballots are because the additional steps voters need to take to cast a ballot create more potential for mistakes. But that is the result of measures that protect against fraud, not evidence of it. Some states like California, Florida and Illinois allow for the“” of ballots before Election Day to ready the ballot for counting, including verifying voter eligibility. But many states do not allow this process to begin until Election Day, which means counting may last a few days, including in states with key Senate races like Pennsylvania and Georgia.
At least in some states, voters whose mailed ballots are rejected have some time to“” or correct administrative errors in their submissions. This may mean the results of key races cannot be completely counted for some time after the election.
In , however, voters are not given the opportunity to correct errors. That's true in , where Republicans recently won a court ruling preventing some mail ballots from being counted when the witness address is not complete. And in other states, like , the legal process for fixing errors is unclear.
shows that many problems with mail ballots can be mitigated ahead of time if election officials communicate effectively with their constituents about voting by mail. Voters whose election officials make more efforts to teach people the proper procedure make fewer mistakes that lead to ballot rejection.
Black and Latino voters undeterred by anticipated Election Day threats
Bertrall Ross, University of Virginia
For many Black and Latino voters, the 2022 midterm elections have been remarkable for what did not happen. Threats of voter intimidation appeared overblown, and attempts to suppress Black and Latino turnout didn't seem to work – at least not that we know of as polls closed on Election Day.
Misinformation that targets minority voters is nothing new. But triggered widespread anxiety among civil rights advocates over the potential consequences for showing up at the polls.
Yet, as in every other election since the adoption of the , Black and Latino voters overcame real and perceived efforts to suppress their increasing ability to affect the .
Poll workers process ballots at an elections warehouse outside of Philadelphia on Nov. 8, 2022. In important ways, the 2022 election season has deviated from historic, against minority voters exercising their citizenship rights guaranteed under the .
Instead of the white supremacists of the past striking fear among minority voters, the fear during this 2022 midterms was the possible chaos dozens of new state election laws could create for minority voters. Those new laws were passed as a result of former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread fraud. Trump's widely disproved theories led several states to enact new that many civil rights activists and Democrats argued .
The problem with the 2020 presidential election was not widespread fraud, but rather the way some people reacted to . It was more than coincidental that with significant numbers of Black and Latino voters, such as Detroit and Philadelphia.
Although it is too early to estimate actual voting turnout numbers, and Latino voters have cast their ballots regardless of perceived voter suppression laws or intimidation.
In an election in which the threats appeared different from those of the past and the prospects of democratic backsliding greater than ever, and voters proved their resilience, with turnout numbers expected to match or exceed that of the last midterm election.