Voting rights

An anxious and divided nation, gripped in the most serious health and economic crises of modern times, finishes voting Tuesday in what both sides describe as the most crucial presidential election in their lifetimes. Partisans for President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden who disagree on almost everything agree on this: The stakes are fundamental and far-reaching, a choice that offers dramatically different visions for the future.

For a few weeks, Donald Trump’s advisers had seemingly gotten through to him — the president was finally encouraging his supporters to vote by mail, at least some of the time. On-message Trump didn’t last long. He recently appeared to suggest people vote twice — voting in-person as a way to determine if their mail-in ballot had been counted — later warning Democrats would be “thieving and stealing and robbing” their way to an election win.

President Trump on Wednesday suggested that people in North Carolina stress-test the security of their elections systems by voting twice — an act that constitutes the kind of voter fraud the president has railed against.

President Trump has revived the idea of using law enforcement officers to patrol polling places, invoking tactics historically used to scare voters of color. In an interview Thursday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump described law enforcement officers as part of a phalanx of authorities he hopes will monitor voting in November.