The Morning: How we vote
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More news is below. But first, a look at how Trump is trying to change the way we vote.
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President Trump may have won the presidency twice, but he still thinks the electoral system is rigged. In his view, the safest way to run a democracy is to vote at your local precinct, and only on Election Day. He believes without evidence that two popular methods are rife with fraud: mailed ballots and voting machines. This week, he said he would aim to eliminate them. He's planning an executive order. This effort is years old — and based largely on conspiracy theories that emerged during the pandemic. (I covered them, alongside voting tech, extensively at the time.) But a change to how we vote could have a huge impact on elections, discarding decades of settled election law. Today's newsletter gives you the basics. Can he do this? Probably not. The Constitution gives authority over elections to the states. They set the "times, places and manner" of elections; they decide the rules; they oversee voting and try to prevent fraud. Congress can also pass election laws or override state legislation, as it did with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped enfranchise minority groups. But the president's authority is limited. Last month, a federal judge blocked his executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote. "The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections," the judge wrote. How many people vote by mail? You could vote absentee for decades, but many more people began casting their ballots this way during the 2020 election. It was a way to pick your leaders while avoiding Covid. It remains popular, presumably for convenience: You don't have to call out of work or brave bad weather to exercise your civic right. In the 2024 election, nearly 40 million people voted by mail, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida. How many use voting machines? Nearly every voter in the country. Some states use a wholly digital interface, like a large iPad. These tabulate the results and create a paper receipt for backup. Other states use machines to scan paper ballots, including those sent by mail. Some states use machines to sort incoming mail ballots.
Are they safe? Or prone to fraud? Voter fraud in the United States is extremely rare across all forms of voting. Countless studies on the topic have found cases of voter fraud to be well below a fraction of a percent. Across six swing states in 2020, there were about 475 potential cases of fraud out of 25.5 million votes cast, according to a study by The Associated Press. Mail: There have been isolated instances of fraud in mail voting, including recently in a mayoral election in Connecticut and two elections in New Jersey. But neither instance involved large numbers of ballots. They were contained to small geographic areas. Trump says bogus mail ballots flood elections. There is no evidence for this. Machines: Despite claims by Trump and his allies that machines have been hacked, or results altered, there has never been any evidence. Does mail-in voting give either party an advantage? It used to be dominated by Republicans, who saw it as an efficient way to turn out rural voters. But since the pandemic, Democrats have embraced the method more widely. In part that's because Trump disparaged voting by mail ahead of the 2020 election. In that race, 58 percent of Democrats voted by mail, compared with 29 percent of Republicans, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the 2024 race, Trump changed his tune. He encouraged his supporters to vote by mail, and they listened: Republicans made large gains, though they still trailed Democrats in many states. If Trump can't mandate a change, will Republican-led states do it themselves? Mail: They've been adding new restrictions to voting by mail ever since the 2020 election. Several eliminated the ability to submit mail ballots in drop boxes, while others have added identification requirements and shortened the window when you can send ballots in. Still, plenty of Republican-led states (Florida, Ohio, Utah and others) use mail voting, and it remains popular with older and rural voters. Machines: No state has looked to outlaw voting machines, but some Republican-led counties attempted hand counts of paper ballots in recent elections. It didn't go well. Some efforts were abandoned when they took too long — or officials used machines to double-check their work. More on elections
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Other Big Stories
The Mercator map of the globe is what many of us were taught in school. It was created by a 16th-century German cartographer to help European explorers to navigate the seas. But the map distorts reality. It makes Europe and Africa appear to be roughly the same size; in fact, Africa is three times as big. Now African leaders are pushing to replace the Mercator map with a more accurately proportioned alternative, called Equal Earth:
"It is more than geography, it's really about dignity and pride," an African civic society leader told The Times. "Maps shape how we see the world, and also how power is perceived. So by correcting the map, we also correct the global narrative about Africa."
This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you're right. (The link will be free.) Ronnie Rondell, a stuntman, died last week at 88. He appeared in a burning suit on an album cover for which band?
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Advertisers are increasingly turning to generative A.I., creating visuals and voice-overs for commercials for a fraction of what they once cost. Some companies are embracing the change: In Britain, a TV network has helped create A.I.-generated spots for small businesses that had never made commercials before. But there are risks: Marketers warn that some customers bristle at the sight of A.I. imagery and question the ethics of replacing human writers and artists with machines.
Bake mustardy sheet-pan salmon with greens. Travel with a great duffel bag. Make soda at home.
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were mezzotint, monetize and timezone. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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